


Teach Me to Sing

by FiliaNoctisPulchris



Category: LazyTown
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Fluff, How Do I Tag, Implied death of an unnamed OC, M/M, Robbie Plays the Piano, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Sportacus (LazyTown) Has a Different Name, Sportacus Likes Apples Too Much, The Orange Chair, Trixie is way too smart for her own good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-09-21 08:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9539498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiliaNoctisPulchris/pseuds/FiliaNoctisPulchris
Summary: Robert Rotterdam (Mr Rotten, to his mouthier students) has the dubious honor of giving the new PE teacher the school tour, when Principal Meanswell has more important things to do. After that, the new guy keeps texting, and running into him, and asking him questions, despite Robert's classroom being almost as far from the gym as possible.





	1. Day -14: 193 to go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BuboMuzziusFTW](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuboMuzziusFTW/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert Rotterdam has the dubious honor of giving the new PE teacher the school tour, when Principal Meanswell has more important things to do.

“Yes, my grandfather was Icelandic,” does not mean, “Of course I’ll show the new PE teacher around.  We’ll obviously bond over shared heritage and language barriers.”  Robert Rotterdam may only teach third grade language skills, and deals with the nonsense that children spout off on a regular basis, but he knew this. Knew it in his bones. Tried to tell Principal Meanswell this fact at least three times over the phone. But he was assigned to orientation duty anyway.

“My brother and his kids are settling into their new place this week,” the principal had said.  Like that was an excuse for foisting his job on someone else.

For this reason, he tried very hard not to be grumpy about meeting a complete stranger at Lazytown Elementary at eight o’clock in the morning, a full week before the teacher inservice week that’s before the school year officially starts. He arrived in his good first-day-of-school shirt, dark circles under his eyes and a thermos in his hand, bracing himself for either a health nut who won’t even like kids or an unenthusiastic former athlete who busted a knee and needed a job.  He’d seen three different PE teachers already, in his eight years at the school, and none were particularly inspiring.

What he found outside the main doors was, arguably, worse.  Spencer Íþróttaálfurinn obviously held himself to a much laxer dress code than Robert did, as he wore blue tracksuit pants and an undershirt to his first day of work, and he was doing one-handed pushups on the front steps.  Robert made a mental note to ignore the fact that track pants somehow flatter this man, took another swallow of coffee, and cleared his throat.

“Mr. Íþróttaálfurinn?”

The man looked up at him, shook a few blond curls off his forehead, and revealed the most ridiculous mustache Robert had ever seen over a charmingly sheepish grin. “Hello?” he asked, accent thick but smile unwavering.

Robert held out his right hand, and bit the inside his cheek before he spoke.  “Robert Rotterdam.  I’m supposed to show you around.”

“Oh, hello!” he said brightly, as if he hadn’t been counting in the two hundreds just a second before.  Robert had never seen anyone move quite the way this stranger did.  He managed to push himself up to a standing position, turn, pick up the drawstring backpack that had been on the ground next to him, and grab his hand to shake, all in one seamless motion.  The handshake was strong enough to move Robert’s shoulder in circles and tweak that spot on his back, but the man didn’t seem to notice.  “I’m Spencer,” he says.  “Where do we start?”

It took a few moments for Robert to stabilize himself, but he managed.  He bit harder at his cheek, and gestured to the doors.  “I’ll give you a quick tour of the whole building,” he said, trying to smile a little.  “You probably won’t need to remember most of it, but just in case…” 

Spencer was already bouncing on the balls of his feet, bag over his shoulder, and his eyes were flicking between Robert and the doors.  Robert took pity on him, and lead him inside, locking the front doors again behind him. They walked through the halls, Robert pointing out the main offices, the staff lounge, various classrooms, art room, music room, the ways to the gym and out to the playground, which he promised to show in detail later, and stopped them in front of the cafeteria.

Throughout the tour, Spencer had been quiet.  He asked a few questions, but mostly just nodded along as Robert talked.  Once they stopped though, Robert took a moment to ask, “Are you alright?  Need a break?”

“Just some air, I think.” Spencer was bouncing again, and it was beginning to worry Robert a little bit.  Was he just nervous, or what?  Or what was starting to seem more likely.

“You sure?” Robert asked.  His head was beginning to hurt, and he wasn’t even the nervous one today.  “I’m about to make some more coffee, then I’ll show you the outside.  Want any?”

Spencer just shrugged, but he followed Robert back to the staff room, and watched him fill the coffee machine and start it brewing.  As Robert settled into his favorite armchair, an orange monstrosity that had been relegated to the corner, Spencer wandered idly around the room, munching on an apple that he had pulled from his bag, looking at the art on the walls, and finding the mail cubby with his name on it. 

Robert pulled out two packages of hot chocolate mix from his pocket, and emptied them both into his thermos, then reached for another sugar packet.  He nearly fell out of the chair when, from the other side of the room, Spencer asked, “Really, Robbie? That much sugar can’t be good for you.”

Ah. He was a health nut. Of course he was. Robert was not dealing with that today.

“Pretty sure I’d be worse off without it at this point,” Robert replied, with a laugh that even he could tell was trying just a lot too hard. The coffee machine was almost finished.  Caffeine was imminent.  “So…Robbie? Really?”

Spencer shrugged again, but watched in vague horror as Robert poured the coffee into his thermos, added a creamer, and stirred for a good two minutes so the chocolate powder would dissolve.  “Is that okay?”

Robert mimicked his shrug, and took a long drink. It was completely placebo, he knew enough about biology to know that, but even so he felt more awake immediately.  Awake enough to continue, even. “You wanted to see the outside?”

The walk out of the building and to the playground was not long, but the complete silence made it feel longer than usual.  Once they were outside, though, Spencer perked up immediately.  He looked over at Robert for a moment, with the same look the children gave when they just wanted to go run, and Robert rolled his eyes and waved him on.  Spencer took off, ran a lap or two around the playground, then spotted the open fields that were just up a small rise.  He went for an easy lap around them as well, then returned to Robert with a wide smile, and a spark in his eye that Robert hadn’t seen since his first hello.

“You don’t have to show me the fields,” Spencer said, earning another eye roll.  “Let’s go to the gym now.  I hear I have an office.”

Robert led him inside, biting his cheek again.  Spencer didn’t need snark on his first day. “You are either going to get along incredibly well with the kids, or you’ll lose control of them in five minutes,” slipped out, though, and Robert sighed. That wasn't necessary.

“I hope the first one,” Spencer said, his smile faltering a little.

With a snort, and another eye roll that he couldn’t quite suppress, Robert said, “So do I, Mr. Íþróttaálfurinn. So do I.”

Spencer smiled a little wider at the name, then frowned.  “What do I have the kids call me?  They’re obviously not going to be able to pronounce that.”

“Well, what have you done before?”

“At the gym everyone just called me Spencer,” he said.  “That’s not really how it works here, huh? And I will not be Mr. I.  Tried that.  Not good.”

Robert watched Spencer’s face screw up tight as he thought, and tried very hard to find a word other than adorable for it.  This was a grown man, who could probably throw him through a window with one hand.  He shouldn’t be _adorable_. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

“Oh, I will.”

They walked into the gym, and Robert half expected Spencer to go running off again, to tear around the gym in some insane fit to burn off even more energy.  The man appeared to have a limitless supply, and was already bouncing on his toes again as he walked. But Spencer walked along the wall with him, stopping to find the buttons to raise and lower the basketball hoops, or to jump up on one of the pull-up bars on the wall, and frown when it moved under his weight.   They didn’t talk much, as Robert had nothing to say, and Spencer was busy exploring.  Only once he seemed satisfied with he perimeter of the gym itself did Robert lead him over to the far corner, where there was a short hallway.  There were two doors on either side, and the hallway ended with double doors that opened onto the parking lot.

“Locker rooms,” he said, pointing to the doors on the right.  “Well, glorified bathrooms, but whatever.  This one is your office.” Robert pushed open the first door on the left to show Spencer a small room, with a desk, a chair, and a whiteboard that hadn’t been properly cleaned.  He grimaced at the bright white walls, made even more painful by the cheap fluorescent lighting. “Obviously, you’ll be able to do some decorating, make the place yours.”

Spencer walked in with wide eyes, and didn’t say anything for a minute or so.  He just stared for a few minutes, then took a few long steps across the room to the back wall, then from side to side, his eyes narrow and his lips pressed together into a tight line. Just as Robert was starting to worry, he nodded, ginning widely.  “Yes, this will do.”

While Robert was still processing the sudden return to cheerful puppy mode, Spencer grabbed the two keys off of his new desk, and held them up. “What are these for?” he asked, squinting at them for a second before tossing them back and forth in his hands.

“The bigger one is your master key,” Robert said, as he watched the keys fly back and forth. “It locks your office, and also gets you into classrooms, the lounge, or through any of the hall doors if they ever lock. Which would only be in an emergency.  You’ll go through all that next week.  The other one is for the equipment room.”

At Spencer’s questioning look, Robert gestured back out towards the hallway, then led the way over to the last door, next to the office.  Spencer fumbled a little with the unfamiliar keys, but unlocked the door without any difficulty. The tennis balls that bounced innocently out of the door as soon as it opened struck Robert as not a particularly good sign.

“Okay, this is going to take some work,” Spencer said as he opened the door wider.  He tossed a disappointed look over his shoulder, as if the mess inside was Robert’s fault, and took a deep breath before entering.  Robert followed warily.

The previous PE teacher had clearly had a system. Unfortunately, that system appeared to be to stuff everything in the nearest convenient spot when done with it. There were boxes and crates full of various balls, bats, jump ropes, bowling pins, and even a pile of snowshoes. Everything was sorted by item, but there were no labels, no system of putting like items together or winter stuff with winter stuff or any system beyond keep all the soccer balls together and make it all fit. Robert cringed.

Spencer was standing in the middle of everything, hands on his hips, apparently cataloguing what he had.  “I’m going to have to clean up a little,” he said, shaking his head a little.

“Yeah, well, you have almost two weeks,” Robert replied. He then stepped back out of the room, and leaned against the cool cinderblock wall outside the door.  Spencer followed a minute later.  “So, that’s the tour.  I assume you’ll be meeting up with Mr Meanswell before inservice, and he can probably answer any questions you have better than me, but if you do need anything, you can always ask.  Preferably before the kids are here. I’ll actually be here for a while this afternoon if you think of anything.”

Spencer nodded once, his smile smaller now.

“I’m over in the third grade wing, if you need me,” Robert said, pointing. “Down that hall, all the way, then left.  My door has my name on it.”

The man laughed a little.  “Okay.  I think I got it. For now, at least.”

Robert just stood, awkwardly for a moment, before stuttering a hasty goodbye.  He then stomped down the hallway as fast as he could go, muttering to himself that he should really just not offer, it’s not like Spencer will ever want his help. Besides, as soon as the other teachers get a load of him, they'll be lining up to answer his questions.

Turning the corner felt like coming home, in an odd, not-really-but-kinda way.  These walls, these windows, were familiar. Robert took a deep breath, and unlocked the door to his room.  It was exactly the same as he left it.

He settled in quickly at his desk to make new labels for the coat closet, where each student will have a cubby and a hook, and quizzed himself on the attendance list even though he knew it would be all for naught as soon as the kids were actually there.  From there, he made name cards, to be set on desks.  The kids will make their own later, of course, but he’ll need some way to mark seating assignments on the first day.

When the cards were done, he turned back to the list. How to do it, this year? Alphabetical is easy, but boring. Alphabetical by first name? No, he has two Ryans, three Bens, a Kirsten and a Kristen, and that will just get too confusing. Birthdays? Hmm…

A knock on the door interrupted him just as he was sorting his list by birthday.  It was Spencer, peeking in sheepishly, blond curls darker from sweating. Why Robert was surprised was beyond him, as Spencer was actually the only other human in the building, but he still did a quick double take.

“Need something?” Robert asked, raising an eyebrow.

Spencer slid around the door, and walked up to the desk, his smile hopeful. “Not right now,” he said, looking around at the posters and empty spaces.  “I just thought, well…”

Robert’s eyebrow went higher. “What? Just spit it out.”

“Can I have your phone number?” Spencer held up his cell phone, which was an alarming shade of blue, and wiggled it. “I just thought that, well, I don’t have any questions now, but I’ll think of something as soon as I get home, and then forget to ask when I see you.  And then I won’t know.  But if I could just text you when I think of something…?”

Robert just stared at him for a minute, then held out a hand and said, “Fine. Give it here.”

That dumb smile stretched into a grin, and eyes lit up.  Spencer passed over his phone, with a new contact already set up, and the phone number bar selected. Robert entered his cell quickly, passed it back, and leaned back into his chair.

“That it?”

“Yes, I think so.” Spencer kept grinning, and headed back to the door.  “I’ll text you in a second, so you’ll have my number too.  See you next week!”

“Good-bye,” Robert said, half-heartedly, after he’d gone.   Then he shuddered.  “And good luck with that mess.”

His phone dinged a minute later, with a text message from an unknown number.  It merely said ‘Thank you’, and was signed with a smily face, complete with a mustache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my debut into LazyTown...
> 
> I haven't written anything worth posting in a long time. Both my other works on here are transfers from ff.net (where I am scribblingfortheheckofit). However, this AU somehow built itself in my brain, and I really need to write it now, even if I have very little knowledge of where the main arc will take this story. I have all sorts of ideas for things that will happen, but am also open to suggestions.
> 
> I do want to say that I'm not a teacher. I have worked with kids before, but not in this particular setting. If I misrepresent the workings of an elementary school, get the third grade curriculum wrong, or make other errors, I apologize. Also, the school in this is laid out like the elementary school I went to, at least in my brain, and a lot of the basic routines are going to be based off that school too.
> 
> The title is from JM Barrie: "If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing", and may change. I'm attached, but, again, open to suggestions.


	2. One Down, 179 To Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of school is always awkward. This year is no exception. Also, Spencer is apparently a superhero, or something.

The first day of a new school year was always sort of awkward for everyone, but particularly, Robert thought, for the adults who have to pretend it isn’t, learn twenty new names, and try to bond with children who are usually at least a little bit afraid of them.  Robert was not good at any of these things.

He arrived at the school around seven o’clock, already on his second coffee of the morning, to sort through all his sticky note reminders for the day, and go through the list of names for the twelve thousand and fifty second time.  He had the desks arranged into four islands of four, and name cards laid out according to the ridiculously complex sorting system his sleep deprived brain had finally settled on. It was based on ratios of syllables to letters in the name, because he’d felt like it. He could do birthdays later in the year.  Also, this system kept Sebastian Rafferty and Seong-Min Lee at different islands, which he had heard was very important.

Robert was in the middle of writing down all the announcements he had for the kids before they had to play name games when his phone chimed.

‘but robbie what if they cant understand me,’ popped up on the screen.

“Oh, for the love of…” Robert let his face fall into his hand. “We talked about this. You’re fine.”

He typed back, ‘they will. enunciate’, then resolved that he would ignore any more texts that Spencer sent him.  Never mind that he’d made the same resolution three times already that morning.  He didn’t need any more of the man’s nerves interfering in his preparations.   There would be students in his classroom any minute now, when the first bus arrived.

The phone chimed three more times, while he finished up, and moved the sticky note reminder about staying late with one of the kids and her brother.  Wouldn’t be a problem, as he’d assured their father.  It wasn’t like Robert had anywhere pressing to be after school.

Robert didn’t mean to look at his phone again. He was ignoring Spencer.

‘i know. I’m just worried’, the first text said.  
‘what if i mess up their names or something’  
‘what if they just don't like me’

With an exasperated sigh, Robert told himself, “I’m absolutely done after this,” and texted back, ‘relax, they will love you. see you at 920’.

When there was no immediate reply, Robert sighed and leaned back in his chair for a minute, reveling in the last few moments of silence he would have for the day. 

“Bus one has arrived,” Ms Busybody’s voice crackled over the loudspeaker.  “I repeat, bus one has arrived. Good luck all, and have a great first day!”

According to his spreadsheet, Robert was expecting two of his students to arrive on the early bus, and sure enough, two eight-year-olds poked their heads in through the door a few minutes later.  They both looked nervous, so he waved them in.  He opened his mouth to greet them and introduce himself, but the girl in the doorway beat him to it.

“Are you Mr. Rotten?” she asked, squinting a little at him. 

There it was. Robert sighed, and nodded.  “My name is Mr. Rotterdam,” he said, trying to smile convincingly and apparently succeeding well enough to fool children.  “I’d prefer that, but Mr. Rotten works, I suppose.  Where did you hear that one?”

The girl shrugged, flipping one blonde braid over her shoulder as she walked into the room. “You had my brother a few years ago.  George?” She looked over at Robert again.

Suddenly, the expression clicked into a memory, and he glanced down at his attendance list for a moment, racking his brain for the name. It had been three years, he was pretty sure, and though the kid’s face was now clear in his mind, the name… What was the name?  Strand? Stanford?  Stafford!

“Are you Mary-Anne, then?” The girl’s mouth dropped open, and out of the corner of his eye, Robbie saw the other boy stifle a laugh.  “I remember George.  I also have an attendance list, so you can stop catching flies. I’m not psychic or anything.”

Mary-Anne nodded and closed her mouth, turning to the desks and then looking to find her name and assigned seat.  The boy who had walked in behind her giggled a little, then waved in Robert’s direction.  “I’m Pixel,” he said.  Quite unhelpfully, Robert thought, as it was clearly not his name according to the attendance sheet. Luckily, there was a pretty logical answer.

“Ryan Pixton?” Robert guessed. The boy nodded. Robert hummed for a moment, then shrugged, and pulled out a pen.  “And you’d rather go by Pixel?”

He blinked back at Robert for a minute, apparently speechless, before asking, in a higher voice, “You’re okay with that?” Robert just raised an eyebrow until the kid mumbled, “Yeah, definitely. Wow. Okay, then. Cool.”

Robert took a second to scribble the nickname down, relieved to have already settled one of his multiple-students-with-the-same-name dramas.  
Mary-Anne had evidently found her seat, and dumped her backpack into her chair before wandering around the room.  Pixel found his seat quickly enough, dropped his bag on the floor next to him, and pulled some sort of hand-held device out of his pocket.  He sat there quietly, content to tap away at his gadget, for about two minutes.

Then another girl, this one all in pink, slipped into the room, and when she locked eyes with Robert, put a finger over her uneven smirk. She then tiptoed up behind Pixel and put her hands over his eyes. When the boy yelped, Robert was pretty sure it was just because he would lose his game without being able to see, as he started grumbling almost immediately.  The girl giggled, and asked Pixel to, “guess who!” despite it being very clear that he knew who she was.

“C’mon, Stephie, get off!” Pixel groaned, but he was smiling, and actually put his gadget down and turned around in his chair.  “You could have just said hello. I was about to get a high score.”

Robert didn’t have to look at his list for this one. Stephanie Meanswell—the principal’s niece, whose father was unable to pick her or her younger brother up until 3:30, uncomfortable with the idea of putting them on the bus or having them home alone, or milling about the gym for half an hour.  It wasn’t like he had any other alternatives for the man, so Robert had agreed to stay and watch the two until Dr. Meanswell arrived, until other arrangements could be made.  He’d been briefed on both the girl and her brother, and had agreed to keep an especially close eye on them.

He sighed, checked the three students off on the electronic attendance page, and looked back over at the two kids just as the announcement for the next bus came over the intercom.  Stephanie was forcing a smile as Pixel was telling her about a new game he’d apparently gotten for his birthday, and it crossed his mind that maybe he should go intervene.  Pixel was obviously excited about it, though, and Stephanie even seemed genuinely interested.  Then Pixel looked up from the game for a second and stopped in the middle of his sentence.

Stephanie bit her lip, and after a pause, mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Pixel asked her, confusion crossing his face for a minute.  A moment later, the kid caught on to something, stood up, and pulled her into a hug. “Look, Steph, you have nothing to be sorry for.  You just…”

Robert watched Stephanie cling to Pixel, watched the start of tears appear in the corners of her eyes, and was half-way out of his seat when another four students arrived.  The first of them ran immediately up to Stephanie and Pixel, yelling, “Pinky!”

“Trixie!” Stephanie called back, wiping her eyes quickly and letting go of Pixel just fast enough to turn and catch an armful of short, pigtailed girl.  “How was the trip?”

Robert sat back down again as the girls started chatting away, and Stephanie’s smile climbed back up to her eyes, but he added a quick note to the bottom of his announcements.  He would have to talk to her, and sooner rather than later.  On the way to the assembly, probably.

After that, the rest of his class filtered in without any major problems.  Stephanie’s friend, the girl with the pigtails, had started flicking crumpled up balls of paper at another boy as soon as he arrived and sat down at the desk next to Pixel’s, earning her sharp glares every time.  Pixel had rolled his eyes and told her to be nice the second time, but it made Stephanie giggle, and the new boy started smirking and making snarky remarks every time the girl hit him with the little paper balls, so Robert let them be.

At eight o’clock, though, he stood and held up one hand.  “Hello, class.  I am Mr. Rotterdam, and I would like for you to all find your seats, and sit quietly.  I have a few announcements before the First Day assembly, and we don’t have a lot of time.”

All sixteen were present, thankfully, and they found their assigned desks quickly enough.  They weren’t particularly quiet, though, so Robert cleared his throat as dramatically as possible.

“If you could all stop talking for a few minutes, I need to do attendance,” he said, then snuck a peek at his computer screen. “Samantha Anderson?”

Samantha Anderson was present, and went by Sam.  The three Bens were all content to be Ben C, Ben I, and Ben M.  Kristin Davis wanted to be called Kristy, which was marginally more distinguishable from Kirsten Porter.  All was going well.

“Lee Seong-Min?” Robert called, mostly confident in his pronunciation.

The girl with the pigtails rolled her eyes, and called out something in another language from her seat at the third island of desks.  “My dad wants you to use Beatrice,” she said, when Robert blinked stupidly at her.  “But call me Trixie. Everyone does.”

Robert nodded, wrote down both names, and moved on without another word, but he did sneak a look back at Trixie.  She was staring at him, wide-eyed. Had this whole class had a crazy stickler for names as a teacher last year?  Of course he would call them what they wanted to be called.  Barring anything inappropriate, of course.

He got to Pixel, and called out “Ryan Pixton, hereafter called Pixel,” because they had already had that moment, and Pixel grinned back at his raised eyebrow.  Then, a few moments later, “Sebastian Rafferty?”

“Present,” said the small boy on Pixel’s left, who had endured Trixie’s paper projectiles.  “And Sebastian will do just fine, thank you.”

Robert underlined Sebastian, on his paper list, then finished up the attendance.  It was an exercise in learning their names, more than anything—he wanted to have all the names and faces straight by the end of the week at the latest, if not by the end of the day.  Announcements, similarly were more a welcome back to school gesture than anything else. He pointed out important parts of the room, told them that there should be books in their desks, and gave some quick guidelines for the coat closet and cubbies therein, inviting all the kids to store their backpacks there.  The minor stampede at that point was expected, and surprisingly didn’t cause any damage.

“I will be putting the daily schedule up on this white board every day,” Robert told them, and gestured to the board.  “Today’s is a little weird, because we have the assembly, but it will always be here. If the schedule changes, I will change it on the board. No one but me is to touch it, understood?”

The kids nodded, and a few looked around at each other.

Robert had just opened his mouth to say something else when the intercom crackled, and Mrs. Busybody’s voice said, “All classes, please go to the gym for the First Day of School assembly.  All classes, to the gym for assembly."

“Alright then,” Robert said, standing up and motioning towards the door.  “You heard the lady.  Let’s line up.  Pixel, why don’t you lead for now?”

A single file line formed quickly enough, and Robert nodded to Pixel even as he caught Stephanie’s attention, and beckoned for her to join him at the end of the line.

“I just wanted to check in,” Robert admitted, and Stephanie pulled the fake smile back onto her face as quick as she could. “You don’t have to… Your dad mentioned you had a rough summer. I just want to say I’m here if you want to talk about it, and if anything gets to be too much, or if you need to get out of the classroom for a bit, that’s okay. Obviously, school is important, but you need to heal. That’s more important. Okay?”

Stephanie looked up at him squarely, her smile gone, and nodded. “Okay,” was all she said, but at least he was getting her brave face, instead of her go-away-I’m-fine face.  It was a start.

Settling his class into their designated area of the bleachers was easy, as he’d been herding children for years.  He had to separate Trixie and Sebastian, who had started arguing on the walk from the classroom to the gym, but once they were sitting far enough apart that they couldn’t reach over to pinch one another, all was well.

The assembly itself was pretty standard fare, and for the first ten minutes was pretty boring for Robert.  They sang the school song, everyone pointedly ignoring the kindergartners who didn’t know it yet, and Principal Meanswell gave a welcome speech.  There was a skit that some of the teachers had put together during the four days of inservice, touting respect and all that.

It wasn’t until Principal Meanswell came back to the podium and said something like, “I would now like to invite our new PE teacher to come up and introduce himself,” that Robert looked up, realized he hadn’t seen Spencer yet.

At that moment, though, Spencer appeared at the other end of the bleachers, and made his way up to the podium in the middle of the gym with a series flips and handsprings that even Robert had not in his wildest imaginings—not that there had been that many imaginings—could have expected.  He tumbled his way through at least five full flips, with quite a few rotations mixed in, and walked the last few yards on his hands, be fore springing up to lean easily against the podium.

The man’s grin was blinding, and it wasn’t fair.

“Well…um, don’t try that at home, kids,” Principal Meanswell stuttered, before moving aside and gesturing for Spencer to take the microphone.

For a minute, Spencer seemed confused, and stared back at 300 children like he couldn’t see them at all.  Then he pulled it together, stepped behind the podium, and waved.

“Hello,” he said in his goofy accent, to more than one giggle.  “I’m the new PE teacher, and my name is Mr. Íþróttaálfurinn. Thankfully, I talked to Mr. Meanswell, and he agrees that you don't need to call me that.  Probably because he can’t say it right either.  So you can all call me Sportacus instead.”

“Is that your superhero name?” yelled one of the kindergartners, who were sitting on the gym floor in front of the bleachers, and therefore had seen all the acrobatics up-close and personal. Robert saw one of the kindergarten teachers rub a hand over his face.

Spencer just laughed. “Sort of,” he said. “So, I’ll see you all in the next few days, and we’ll have a fun time getting moving!”

He waved again, then cartwheeled back over to where Robert now realized he had been sitting with the other specialty teachers.  Marissa, the music teacher, cozied right up to him once he sat back down on her left, and Robert looked away.  Robert’s phone was off and in his desk at the other end of the hall, but as soon as his class was in someone else’s charge for a few minutes, he was going to text this ridiculous man and tell him to stop showing off.  He was already new, foreign, and all muscles. It’s not like he needed more attention.

Also, he would absolutely deserve every time the children asked to see the flips again.  Robert grinned widely, an hour and some later, when he walked his class down for their first gym period, and the first thing out of anyone’s mouth was “Can you show us some more flips?”

“They’re only for special occasions,” Spencer said, throwing a warning look at Robert when he snickered despite himself, and lead the kids into the rules of soccer, grade three edition.  Robert left about halfway through the explanation, taking the break time to send off a text.

‘you ridiculous showoff’ he sent.

During the class’ lunch recess, he saw the response, and the texts that followed.

‘youre just jealous’  
‘do you want to get food after?’  
‘you know, to celebrate surviving day one’

Robert sighed, and stared off into space, considering. Food in Spencer’s world probably meant a salad bar somewhere, or protein shakes, but if he could just talk the man into stopping at the bakery two blocks down…

He sent, ’buy me coffee and I'm in. Ill meet u at ur office at 330ish’

The rest of the day passed slowly, similar to the morning in that he was orienting the kids to their workbooks and the subjects they would be covering, rather than actually getting any teaching in.  It wasn’t until around 2 o’clock, with a half-hour left of the day, that he beckoned them all over to the carpeted corner of the room, and pulled out two books.

“So, one of the things I’ve really enjoyed in the past few years is reading aloud,” he started, as he watched the kids settle around his chair with the various pillows he had made and collected.  “We don’t have to do it all year, if you don’t like it, but I want you to at least give it a chance.  I have two choices for books here…”

The class ended up choosing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory over Charlotte’s Web, and Robert was quite happy with that turn of events.  It was whimsical enough to keep the first few weeks of class ending on high notes, and he could do voices. He had just managed to settle into the cadence of reading aloud, and made it through the first few pages, when the intercom popped once.

“Bus four will be arriving in a few minutes,” Mrs. Busybody’s voice announced. “All those riding bus four should collect their things and report to the front door.”

There was immediately a flurry of activity, as the children all ran for the closet to grab their backpacks and lunch boxes.  Only two of his students were going to catch bus four, but the day was over as soon as Mrs Busybody started calling buses.

A few minutes later they heard, “Last call for bus four. Bus one will arrive soon, all those taking bus one should head to the front door.  All those who are walking or being picked up should head to the gymnasium now.”

By quarter to three, it was just Stephanie left, and the smaller blond boy sitting with her, curled up around one of the pillows.  “You must be Xavier,” Robbie said to the boy, who appeared half asleep already. “Long day for you too?”

The boy nodded, and leaned against Stephanie.  “It’s Ziggy,” he mumbled.

“Ziggy, then.” Robert sat back down in his reading chair, and raised an eyebrow.  “Go ahead and nap.  I may do the exact same thing.”

There was a long pause, full of nothing but sweet silence and during which Ziggy seemed to be nodding off, before Stephanie asked, “Could you maybe read something for us, Mr Rotterdam?  Like a nap-time story for Ziggy, or something?”

Robert shrugged, then nodded.  He took a minute to close the blinds in the windows and turn off most of the classroom lights, then walked over to the bookshelf. “Any requests?” he asked, but Stephanie just shook her head, and rearranged herself and Ziggy into a more comfortable position.

He picked Mr Popper’s Penguins at random, and settled back into reading quickly enough.  By the time he finished the first chapter, both children were sound asleep.  Robert smiled down at them, curled up together in a pile of pillows, until some one cleared their throat from the doorway.

“Robbie, you have such a nice voice,” Spencer said, because of course it was Spencer.  “I was.. well, I thought I’d come see if you might be done earlier than you said. But you still have…” He gestured to the sleeping children.  “Is someone coming for them?”

Robert nodded once.  “Yeah, their dad is a little late.”

“Oh, okay.” Spencer shifted, running a hand through his silly curls and looking for all the world like an awkward child himself.  “We’re still on though, right? I’ll see you in a bit?”

He’d left after Robert confirmed, and Dr. Meanswell knocked on the door about fifteen minutes later, looking exhausted.  Robert let him in, and saw the man’s face soften immediately upon seeing his napping children.  “They didn’t give you any trouble?”

“No,” Robert replied, “They both kinda crashed, actually. But we are going to have to talk about alternative plans.  Not today, and if they need to stay late with me this week, fine.  But we need to figure something out.”

The doctor just nodded, thanked him, and gently woke Stephanie before picking Ziggy up.  They left, and suddenly Robert wanted to just curl up in their spot and sleep for a while.  Cake and coffee with Spencer was barely motivating enough to get him up and packing.

It was good cake though, and Spencer kept up a light-hearted conversation, interspersed with, “How can I make Trixie and Sebastian stop fighting?”

Robert’s only reply was, “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, the comments you gave me for the last chapter were so nice, so thank you so much. I'm really loving writing this, and I'm glad people are enjoying it and looking forward to it.
> 
> I did spend at least three full days going, "OMG WHAT IF THE REST OF IT JUST SUCKS???" but I think I'm over that now. I haven't had as much of a chance to edit this one, although BuboMuzziusFTW looked at it a few times while it was in the works and pointed out the worst of the glaringly atrocious bits. If there are obvious errors, please let me know.
> 
> I'm so sorry, BTW, if anyone is upset by the way I'm treating Stephanie and Ziggy and their situation. I hate being mean to them, but this universe is not all sugar and spice, unfortunately.


	3. Same Song, Third Verse (177 days left)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie has a somewhat unfortunate Wednesday.

Tuesday was fine. 

The students were quiet in the unfamiliarity of a new room, with a new teacher, and there was actually time to start in on real material, even if it was review from last year.  They came back from the art room with glue-sticky fingers and glitter in their hair, and grumbled quietly after lunch about gross egg salad until he started class again.  When they finished going through the weekly spelling list, they actually seemed eager to sit in a circle on the floor and listen to him read.   Stephanie and Ziggy had been happy to work on the various jigsaw puzzles he pulled out until their father arrived.

He also only saw Spencer once, in the staff lounge during lunch-time.  They didn’t talk, barely even made eye contact, and Robert was out of the room again as soon as his coffee finished brewing. There were fewer texts between them. This was good; if the man spent too much time with him, he’d figure out exactly what Robert was, and probably wouldn’t like it at all.

Of course, after a nice, quiet, relatively easy day, there would be a difficult day.  Wednesday, therefore, was not fine.

It started at 2:18 in the morning, when Robert woke up for absolutely no reason he could think of, feeling vaguely cold.  He had looked over at the clock and groaned, before rolling over and pulling his blankets tighter around him, closing his eyes, and working his way through his list.  Insomnia was nothing new.

Unfortunately, he’d realized early on that he’d have to forego the sleep aid he’d foolishly decided not to take the previous night, and his mind refused to clear.  It was set on pulling back the dream he’d been having, even after it had popped like a soap bubble as soon as he’d opened his eyes.  It was warm there, his brain insisted.  It was nice.  You liked it there.

Robert sighed, working through the various relaxation thought loops he’d come up with, systematically tensing and releasing what muscles he had.  He tried the yoga breathing trick he’d seen online and not really believed. When that didn’t work, he turned his thoughts in a different familiar direction, brought himself up and tried to stroke himself back to that comfortable, floaty relaxation.

It was nice and warm before, his brain reminded him. You liked it.

He ended up hauling himself out of bed at about 4:30, to shower, dress, and read for a while before he had to head to school.  He’d thought about making breakfast, since he had the time, but the thought of food made him vaguely uncomfortable.  He decided not to push it.

When he arrived at school, a little later than usual but still long before any of the students would arrive, Spencer was standing outside his door with two styrofoam cups, and a too bright smile.

“Robbie!” he called, bounding forward to meet Robert and walk back to the classroom with him.  “I know you always bring your own, but I was thinking that we could figure out a coffee mix that you like that’s better for you than that… Anyway.  If you don’t want to, that’s okay.”

Robert blinked at him, trying not to be disappointed by this turn of events.

Spencer held one of the two cups out to him.  “Here. Try this, and see what you think.”

It was far too bitter.  There was dark chocolate, which Robert usually preferred, but no sugar, as far as he could tell. There was another odd taste as well.

“What’s the—”

“Probably the almond milk.” Robert’s eyebrows shot up, he could feel it, and Spencer looked down at his cup sheepishly.  “I asked for it in mine, and they used it for both.  I was going to ease you into that one later on, but…”

When the man looked up again, hope etched into every line on his face, Robert took another sip, and shrugged.  “It’s alright.  For free coffee.  Bitter, though.”

The smile Spencer gave him after that, before he ran back to the gym, almost made Robert forget for a second that he was being an overbearing health nut, and that he wanted to change Robert, even if it was for his own good.

The school day itself was not as chaotic as it could have been, but Robert found himself with a headache pressing against his right temple, just before eight o’clock, when he had managed to finish  Spencer’s health coffee and was starting on his thermos.  Then Trixie and Sebastian started arguing over whose pencils were whose.

They made it through morning geography without any major issues, and lined up to go to the music room.  Marissa greeted the class warmly, and sent Robert the same pleading look he’d been getting since he accidentally sat down at her piano on an inservice day three years ago.  The one that said, ‘Please accompany, and save my fingers from falling off?’

Robert was a sucker for puppy-eyes, so he shrugged, and ignored the children’s confused looks as he made his way over to the bench.  This was easy, he sat and played an assortment of pitches and chords through warm-ups, and didn’t have to do any teaching beyond the odd disappointed look when the kids were disrespectful and Marissa’s back was turned.  He got to tune out for a while when the class turned into a discussion of pitch, and the music was easy enough that he could sight read though some well-enough-known songs.

The looks Marissa kept tossing his way either meant there would be all sorts of gossip after chorus rehearsal that afternoon, or that she knew something about him that he was going to regret.  Robert hoped for the former.  If it was the latter, he had no idea what it was.

The class headed back to his classroom 45 minutes later, and he could hear the whispers as clearly as if they’d been for him.  They didn’t know he played piano, what else could he do, could they get him to sing instead of doing math? The ache in his head throbbed a bit.

Later, while they were doing a set of word problems, Robert watched Stephanie getting paler and paler.  They were talking about how many raisins they would need for a batch of cookies when she dropped her pencil, and made no move to retrieve it.

“Alright.  I want each group of four to work on this one and number five, and we’ll compare answers in a few minutes,” Robert said, pushing himself out of his chair.  “Stephanie, can I see you in the hall for a second?”

The rest of the class gave a simultaneous, “Ooohhh,” and she did get one, “Someone’s in trouble,” but Pixel and Trixie looked up and over at her with worry in their eyes. Stephanie just stood silently and walked through the door.

As soon as Robert closed the door behind them, Stephanie leaned against the wall, then slid down to sit on her heels, the heels of her hands pressed into her face.  She was probably crying, given the way her whole body was shaking.  Robert sighed, then sat down next to her, conscious that he was blocking any view the rest of the class may have had through the window next to the door.

“Stephanie, are you okay?” he asked, ridiculously. The pamphlets and websites made this seem so easy.  Stephanie just shook her head, but she leaned over so her head was resting on his arm.  “Alright. That’s alright.”

After a few minutes, the girl pulled her hands away from her face, and took a deep breath.  “She really liked oatmeal raisin cookies.  We used to make them all the time.”

“Yeah?”

Stephanie nodded.  “So we were doing the problems, and when we got to that one, all I could think of was how upset she’d be if we made cookies and they only had six raisins in each one.”  She looked over at Robert, her cheeks turning almost as pink as her shoes, her dress, and her eyes, and the ache in his head was nothing on the yank his heartstrings suffered.  “Is that silly?”

“No,” Robert said.  “I don’t like raisins, but if I had a chocolate chip cookie with only six chocolate chips in it, I’d be furious.”

She sighed, lifted her head off his arm to look up at him. “They would be pretty awful cookies, huh?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, they would.”  Robert gave her enough time to say something else, if she wanted, before he asked, “Do you want to go back in?  You don’t have to, I can send you to the nurse for a while to lie down.  Say you have a headache.”

“Well, I do kinda have a headache.”

“Alright then,” he said. He stood, wincing as his back popped, and then reached down to help Stephanie up off the floor.  The classroom was dead silent when he opened the door and asked, “Pixel, can you walk Stephanie to the nurse’s office?  She’s not feeling well.”

In another context, he probably would have teased the kid for how quickly he jumped to help out, but the fact that he just gave Stephanie a quick hug before taking her hand and leading her down the hall was enough to reassure Robert that he’d made the right choice.  Trixie might have cheered her up a little, but she would have asked questions first.

Also, he was confident that Pixel would come right back.

Robert took his lunch time to collapse into his orange chair in the teacher’s lounge, and glare exhaustedly at anyone who came near him.  He set an alarm on his phone in case he managed to fall asleep, and closed his eyes, but the incessant chatter of the other teachers in the lounge kept him at half alert.  When someone said his name, his ears perked up, and when someone called him “Robbie” in a silly accent, he cracked one eye open.

Spencer was pulled into the conversation at the other table by the art teacher, and quietly reassured that, “Sometimes he’s just like that. Don’t worry about it.”

The day continued much in the same vein. Stephanie felt up to coming back to class after lunch, but by then one of the Bens had returned from recess with a skinned knee, and screamed bloody murder when Robert tried to put antibiotic ointment on it.  Someone opened a window while he was distracted, which could have been nice, given the heat, except that a bee managed to find its way into he classroom, and there were at least five minutes of utter chaos.

There was a heated debate—students screaming at each other—over Sebastian’s pile of fifteen pencils before they started on science for the day.  Sebastian maintained that they were all his, despite the fact that one had Kirsten Porter etched into it, one was covered in the initials BC in sharpie, and one was pink and glittery.

Oddly enough, before Robert stepped in, the most effective tactic was Stephanie saying, “Well, the pink one goes with all of my stuff, and it really clashes with the red bow-tie.  Could I maybe borrow it for the rest of the day?” Robert had smiled at that, and the consideration Sebastian had given it.  The girl was good.

After that, though, all the children were just a little on edge all afternoon.  They wouldn’t settle, even when they headed to the library to find their own silent reading books.  Ms Engles, the librarian, had put together a display of appropriate books for them, and was explaining where the students could find more like them, when Robert had to tell them to stop talking. A few minutes later, he’d had to step in again to separate a few pairs.

Ms Engles walked over to him afterwards, frowning deeply.  “Rough day, Mr. Rotterdam?” she whispered, raising an eyebrow.

Robert shrugged.  “It’s been just one thing after another,” he said.  “They’ve been like this for the last hour and a half.”

“Really? I’m sorry, but they were very rude just now,” she started to say. “Talking over me, interrupting, poking one another, talking back…”

She stopped when Robert sighed, a little more dramatically than necessary. “I know. I was here. I’m sorry they were difficult.”

Robert felt a little bit bad for snapping, after the words left his mouth. It probably looked like he was teaching the children to be rude, now.  An apology was probably in order.

“You look tired,” Ms Engles said, before he could say anything.  “Did you not sleep well?”

That was a personal question, and he wasn’t going to answer it, so Robert just shrugged again.  So much for apologizing.  If they were off the subject already, and she was going to ask him about his sleep cycles, of all things, she didn’t need one after all.  Instead, he headed over to the shelf of classics, with a thought to his next read-aloud book. Did the library have a copy of Treasure Island?

The kids lined up quickly when their library time was up, and after a warning look from Robert, walked back silently to the classroom.  He chided them for their behavior as soon as everyone was back in their seats, and reminded himself that he’d promised himself he’d be nicer to Ms R. Engles.

Then again, he was already being nice to Spencer, and there was only so much extra niceness he could manage all at once.

The class worked though spelling and vocabulary quickly and quietly enough, though a few of them kept looking over at Robert with either questioning looks or flat out fear.  He tried not to notice, but obviously he wasn’t keeping his bad mood or his loss of patience a secret.  While they worked in desk groups, he sat at his own desk, supervising and running through his relaxing thought loops again, hands fluttering around the desk for something to play with.

There was a text on his phone, he noticed as he fiddled with it. ‘are you ok?’

‘just tired’ Robert sent back, careful to keep the phone hidden from the kids.

A few minutes later, it vibrated in his hand, interrupting the sonata he was humming to himself, and went off again a few seconds later.

‘i was worried. you didn't look so good at lunchtime’  
‘also you didn't eat. want anything?’

Robert sighed, and texted back, ‘havent been hungry all day’ before putting the phone down in disgust.  He’d heard all the lectures about texting in class, given the lecture about texting in class, and always thought it was ridiculous.  Who would possibly be checking their phone while teaching?

Apparently he did that now.  But no more. He’d get a stress ball or something.

And now that Robert realized he hadn’t eaten all day, he was ravenous.  That was helpful, thanks Spencer.  ‘I saw you didn’t eat, let me remind you of that when you have no ability to go track down anything to eat, and actually only have a packet of raw sugar and half a thermos of cold coffee.’  Wonderful.

His stomach growled incredibly loudly, just then.  Loudly enough that he jumped, and all of the students looked up at him, various degrees of surprise and confusion in their expressions. “What?” Robert asked, when they didn’t stop staring. “Grown-ups can’t get hungry too?”

There were a few giggles, but no response as they all turned back to their work.  No one seemed nervous anymore. They whispered amongst themselves as they wrote, and passed knowing little smiles around the room.

A stab of guilt pushed its way into his gut, and Robert winced a little as he gathered the class.  “Anything you didn’t get to finish, do for homework. Let’s go over to the carpet,” he said, and moved to his much less comfortable reading chair.  “Grandpa Joe has another story for us, I think.”  The children settled into their comfortable pile of bodies and pillows, and Robert read the next chapter.

As Mrs Busybody was calling the buses, and the children were all gathering their things, Eric came up to Robert with a pack of oyster crackers, clearly from the soup station in the cafeteria, and held them out.  “I was saving these for the bus ride, but I think you need them more than I do,” the boy said, giving the package a little shake.  “My dad gets really grumpy when he’s hungry, too.”

“Thanks,” was all Robert could get out, but he took the crackers smiled a little as Eric all but ran out the door, despite the fact that bus three hadn’t been called.

The kid nearly bowled Spencer over as the man skidded to a stop in the doorway, a white box tied with twine in his hand.  There was a cry of “Sportacus!” from the few kids still in the room, to which he waved awkwardly before walking in and holding the box out to a bemused Robert.

“You said you hadn’t eaten, so I ran over to the bakery again,” Spencer explained, shaking the box in the exact same way Eric had just shaken the crackers that were still in Robert’s hand.  “I didn’t know what you liked, but Katie recognized my description of you, and gave me this.”

Robert nodded, took the box, and pulled the twine off.  Inside was a chicken salad sandwich, with no leafy nonsense, and a bag of the really good barbecue chips.  He nodded.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked, putting the box down so he could fish his wallet out of the desk drawer. “Coffee this morning, sandwich now…”  
Spencer waved dismissively at him.  “Nothing.  Call it thanks for helping me out.”  His mustache twitched as he smiled.  “Just promise you’ll take care of yourself, or I will start charging you.”

Robert was already leaning against his desk, a bite of the sandwich in his mouth, by the time Spencer voiced this request, but offered the pinkie finger of his free hand.  He was surprised when Spencer hooked his own little finger around his, but it seemed to satisfy the man.

Ziggy walked into the room a minute later, and Robert’s eyes flicked up to the clock. Thankfully, the half a mouthful of sandwich muffled the expletive that dropped out of his mouth.  He swallowed it forcefully, and pushed himself to his feet.  “We’ve go to get to the music room.”

Stephanie jumped up from her desk and pulled her backpack on, before turning Ziggy around with a quick hug.  Robert was corralling them and Spencer out of the room a few seconds later, and left the lights off and door locked.  “Thank you so much for this,” he said to Spencer as he bustled the Meanswell children down the hall.  “I mean it.  I just need to go. Chorus.”

Spencer stood outside the classroom door, face scrunched up again in confusion, as the three of them all but ran down the hall.  Robert waved, and Stephanie called back, “He did really need it!” before they rounded the corner, and couldn’t see him anymore.

“Well, he sure saved your butt,” Stephanie told Robert as they approached the music room, where Marissa was already arranging students on the risers.  Robert shrugged in response, and nudged her through the door.

Marissa nodded as they entered, and waved Stephanie over.  “Hello there,” she called. “Mr. Rotterdam, I see you managed to find an assistant this year.”

Robert just waved at her, and moved Stephanie’s backpack from where she had dropped it in the door way to the pile of backpacks in the corner.  He then pulled the rest of his sandwich out and devoured it while Marissa set up and started warm-ups. Ziggy followed him around the room, a confused expression on his face.

When he was finished eating, Robert crouched down to Ziggy’s hight, and held out a hand. “What do you say?” he asked, “Do you want to help me out?  I need someone to turn the pages for me.”

Ziggy too his hand and shook it, then followed Robert over to the piano bench.  It took a minute or so to explain, and then Ziggy just had to sit and listen while Robert played chords under the chorus’ scales, but the kid caught on quickly once they moved on to an actual song.

Dr. Meanswell was there with some of the other early parents, around 3:45, but when Robert asked Ziggy if he wanted to go to his dad, Ziggy gave him a very serious look and asked, “But then who would turn your pages?”

After all the kids left, Marissa leaned over the piano, where Robert had started noodling. “So, what’s new with Mr. Rotten?”

He looked down at his hands. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, huh?  That’s not what I hear.” Robert looked up from the keys to see her smirking at him.  “You have a new best friend, and you didn’t even tell me?”

Robert shrugged.  “Wasn’t really my idea. Meanswell had me give him the tour, and now he’s attached.  Why?”  When Marissa didn’t answer for a minute, he raised an eyebrow. “What are the girls saying?”

“Well, we do have a primary source account of your little coffee date on Monday,” she said, smirking wider. “He’s all distressed about your sugar intake. It’s adorable.”

Improvisation turned to a series of arpeggios as the conversation took up more of Robert’s attention.  “It wasn’t a date.  He offered celebratory cake.  I didn’t say no.”

“Sounds like a date to me.”

Robert didn’t like where this was going.  “Please, don’t go there.”

“Would it work?” Marissa asked, considerately holding back her laughter.

“No.”

She sighed, and started drumming her fingers on the top of the piano. “Fine.  Be a buzzkill. Is there anything more I should know?”

“He, uh, wants to make me all healthy. One step at a time.” Marissa raised an eyebrow. “He brought me coffee this morning that was more to his healthy standards, but didn’t tell me what was in it, and I have a sort of bad feeling he’s going to keep doing it.”

“Is this supposed to make me want to set you up _less_?”

Robert sighed. “If he wanted me, would he be trying to change me?”

“Okay, point. But would he be buying you coffee, if he didn’t like you?”  Robert rolled his eyes, and tried to frown hard enough to stop the conversation, and refused to answer any more questions.

Marissa left him to the room with a quick goodbye, and he moved on from his idle vamp of the opening arpeggios into the rest of the Moonlight Sonata, letting himself play with the tempo as much as he wanted.  Maybe it ended up being a touch more plaintive than usual.  Who cared?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's pining for those chips I never let him eat, obviously.
> 
> So, I upped the rating on this one for exactly one sentence, but it was going to have to go up eventually anyway. I'm really terrible at writing explicit stuff, so that will only happen if I have no other options, but I feel perfectly confident implying.
> 
> Also, I do think I should clear this up, and I don't even know why I didn't to start with: Stephanie and Ziggy's mother died over the summer. I'm not going into details because that's not really what's important to Robbie, but yeah. She was upset last chapter because she had to miss Pixel's birthday party because of this, though obviously that's not her fault.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who reads, kudos-es, or comments. I love feedback--comment, criticize, give suggestions, just say hi, whatever you want. It makes my day. Hopefully I have proofed this chapter better than the last one, but if you see any typos, definitely let me know.
> 
> Also, Ms R. Engles (a last name I made up) is Miss Roberta. I couldn't resist.


	4. Thirty Days Has September (155 remain)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first month of the school year is all about settling into routines, and figuring out new people. It's also apparently a good time to move furniture around.

The month of September passed in a blur of spelling quizzes and rapid-fire math, in colored maps and bean sprouts, and so many questions that Robert couldn’t even begin to properly answer them all. The class was energetic, as eight-year-olds are wont to be, and curious.  Robert could start them off on a line of science questions, and there would be Pixel, looking up the latest discoveries instead of rushing off to lunch recess.  They were keeping track, as a class, of a probe that had been sent out to take pictures of the galaxy, and was just reaching its destination.

The Meanswells had settled into a routine as well.  After a week of keeping them busy for an extra hour, Robert had called Dr. Meanswell, and asked when they could sit down and figure out what they were going to do.  The next day, they were talking about tutoring, or at least calling it tutoring so that Robert could be compensated, and chorus, and having Stephanie and Ziggy go home with one of their friends at least once a week.  Robert had been all too happy to provide contact information for the parents of some of his students.

In the end, they agreed to Robert keeping Stephanie and Ziggy for tutoring hours on Monday and Friday, and continuing with chorus on Wednesday.  Dr. Meanswell had every Thursday off, and promised he’d figure out a cycle of play-dates with other parents for Tuesdays.  The first one of those was with Pixel, whose father Dr. Meanswell already knew.

Spencer was even more present these days, and apparently holding Robert to his promise of taking care of himself.  He quizzed Robert on what he had for breakfast almost every morning. The day wasn’t complete anymore without being poked at lunch, and the gym teacher asking, “Robbie, where are your vegetables?”

And that wasn’t all. Robert had two thermoses now.  He brought one from home himself, and Spencer supplied the other.  The new one was a bright purple, and had been decorated with white-out flowers by Stephanie, who had needed something to do while Robert was quizzing Ziggy on his spelling words one afternoon.  It was quite well done, for an eight-year-old, and Robert kind of loved it.

Spencer brought coffee nearly every day, but it was no longer from a coffee shop. After about three days of buying coffee for Robert, and requesting all sorts of modifications for it, then buying tea for himself, Spencer had invested in a coffee machine and has been concocting his healthier coffee-that-doesn’t-taste-like-coffee at home instead.  He also started explaining what he was doing, so Robert could try for himself. Robert tried to pay him once, and was promptly shoved out the door of Spencer's office.  The project was ongoing, but Robert now had hazelnut syrup and cocoa powder at home instead of hot chocolate mix.

Spencer was disgustingly proud of this achievement.

Robert has been keeping a closer eye on Spencer as well, since the first Thursday Spencer had brought him a reusable thermos of coffee instead of a styrofoam cup.  Thursdays were Dr. Meanswell’s weekday off, and so Robert had time to himself as soon as all the busses had left, so he’d walked over to Spencer’s office to return the thermos.  He’d found Spencer finishing what appeared to be a full bottle of orange juice. 

The man had jumped when Robert poked his head in the door, and hastily tried to put a number of things at once into a drawer with once hand.   “Hello, Robbie!” he’d called, after swallowing.  “What brings you here?”

“Just returning this,” Robert said, raising an eyebrow as he held out the thermos.  Spencer’s wide, nervous eyes relaxed a little, and he grinned as he took the thermos and pitched it easily into his gym bag.  “I thought I’d save you the walk to my classroom,” Robert added added, “since the Meanswells are out of my hair this afternoon.”

Spencer nodded, still standing awkwardly behind his own desk, glass in hand, while Robert leaned against the doorframe.  After a pause, Spencer’s eyes narrowed again.  “Was there anything else, or are you just enjoying the view?”

Robert raised one eyebrow, trying to look unimpressed even as he felt blood rushing to his cheeks.  “I’ve seen a blood glucometer before, you dolt,” was what he said, after a few silent false starts. “My dad’s diabetic.  One or two?”

“One.” Spencer was staring back at him, the deer-in-the-headlights look back in his eyes, and his accent sounded even thicker.  “Diagnosed when I was four.”

With another quick glance at the juice bottle, Robert nodded. “Where were you at just now?”

“Um…sixty-two.”  He recovered enough poise to look a little embarrassed.

“Right.”  Robert bit his cheek, and settled an even glare at Spencer.  “And you have the nerve to lecture me about not taking care of my…”

“I take better care of myself than you do,” Spencer snapped, then blinked, and sat down heavily in his chair, his hands reaching up to pull at his hair.  “I do, I swear. I’ve just been doing so much more here, and I’ve been running low some afternoons.  I didn’t realize quite how much more time I’d be spending with the kids here, and when they ask me to play, I’m not going to say no.  I just need to get used to eating a little more.”

Something clicked in Robert’s brain. “So that first day? Going to the bakery?”

“I was so unprepared, and adrenaline got to me,” Spencer was curling up on himself, and wouldn’t look up, but Robert thought he heard a weak chuckle.  “You were lucky I didn’t pass out on the way there.  I set up a full stash the next morning, but…”

There was another pause, and Spencer remained curled in on himself. Then Robert asked, “Do I need to run and get you a sandwich?”

Spencer’s head popped up, and wide blue eyes stared back at Robert for a minute as his jaw hung open.  Robert giggled a little, and lifted his hands, palms up, in front of him as Spencer started laughing as well.  They’d managed to avoid any other tension that afternoon, and even ended up going to the bakery again for snacks once Spencer felt a little less like the world might spin out from under him.

After that, Robert kept an eye out for the little things, like Spencer’s hands shaking when he picked up his class from the gym, or his eyes glazing over at the lunch table.  He’d sometimes pass Spencer an extra pack of goldfish crackers, or something.  Subtly, of course.  The times he was obvious, he’d get an earful about it, and how cute they were, from Marissa.

Stephanie was starting to notice, too.  On the days she stayed late with Robert, and Spencer didn’t show up, she asked where he was.  On one particularly hard afternoon, when they’d talked about her friends and how nice they were being, she’d looked Robert straight in the eye and said, “I’m glad you have a best friend, now. Sportacus is a really good friend, too.”

“Yeah, I guess he is,” Robert had replied.

The whole class, actually, was surprisingly unconcerned with how often Spencer appeared at the doorway, sometimes.  He’d started popping by just to say hello, once Robert had put his foot down about the texting during the school day.  He’d go galloping by in the hallway, waving in the doors at the students, in the last few minutes before lunch recess, then catch Robert once the kids were racing off to the playground.

His favorite encounters were at the end of the day, though. There was never anyone in the gym for the last half-hour of the school day, so every once in a while, Robert would look up from reading aloud to see Spencer leaning in the doorway, his eyes closed and a fond smile on his lips.

None of the kids ever noticed he was there, or there would have been an uproar.  Spencer would have been pounced on by half the class, and he always looked so relaxed when he was there.  Robert suspected it was the first real quiet time he got in a day.

However, there was one day that Spencer appeared in the doorway looking frazzled, and shot a pleading look in Robert’s direction just as the class was settling in for reading time.  He raised an eyebrow in question, but Spencer just shrugged.  Robert opened his book.

“You don’t need to wait at the door, Peter Pan,” Robert said, pretending to look for his marked page as he watched Spencer jump out of the corner of his eye. “If you want to listen, you can come sit down with the rest of us.”

Spencer hesitated, not quite understanding, until Stephanie got up and walked over to him. “Come on, Sportacus,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him over to the carpet. “You can sit next to me.”

Robert tried not to laugh at his bemused expression, and barely succeeded.  Spencer sat down in the middle of the group of kids, hugging the bright blue pillow someone had thrown at him, and was soon the base of a cuddle pile.  Trixie was all but in his lap, Stephanie leaned against one side, Pixel rested his back along his opposite arm, and Ben I and Eric propped themselves up on his back, their chins resting on his shoulders.  Sebastian knocked a foot against his, and Spencer knocked back until they were engaged in the laziest battle Robert had ever seen.

After checking in via eyebrow, and being assured that cuddles were exactly what his overgrown puppy of a friend needed after a stressful day, Robert turned to the book.  He dove into the new chapter, explaining the mysterious red door, and the wonders of Mr Wonka’s inventing room.  The words were freeing, and he felt sensation slip away in the wake of the story.

At the first mention of Oompa-Loompas, though, there was a vague, “Wha?”  Robert snapped back to himself, and looked up to see Spencer, with a very confused expression.

Stephanie giggled from his left side, and squirmed to whisper, “They’re his special workers from Loompaland.  They’re short, and like chocolate beans.”

“They sing, sometimes,” Trixie added.

Spencer looked up at Robbie like the world has turned upside down on him, and Robert just shrugged before continuing.  This happened a few more times, with all the puns and the complete and utter nonsense that is the Wonka Chocolate Factory.  Each time, one of the children would pipe up with an explanation, even if it didn’t usually help.  Robert kept his face schooled into indifference, but only by amazing force of will

At the end of the day, as everyone was scrambling for their backpacks and lunch boxes, Stephanie elbowed Spencer, who was still sitting on the carpet with her, and said, “He’s really good at that, huh?”

“He is,” Spencer replied, all sincerity.  Robert flushed a little from where he was ushering students out the door. 

Stephanie wasn’t done though.  “He’s got a really nice voice, too,” she said.  “All warm and cozy, and if he talks while you’re hugging him, it’s all rumbly.”

“Really?  How would you know that?”

“Oh, nothing in particular.  Did you know Mr. Rotten actually gives really good hugs?”

Spencer looked over at Robert for a second, and when their eyes met there was a strange something in his expression that Robert couldn’t name.  “No,” he said to Stephanie.

The girl prattled on about how it was weird, really, because he looks like he’s all awkward and gangly and stuff, and he never seems to like touching anyone else, but he actually can just wrap all around you and there’s all these places that you can just fit into, you know?  Robert tuned it out.  Spencer was still staring at him strangely.

After that, Spencer didn’t come to listen to Robert read for a few weeks.  They still saw each other all the time, of course, so it was ridiculous to be disappointed. Robert wasn’t disappointed.

Towards the end of the month, with very little ceremony and even less warning, a note was posted that the teacher’s lounge would be refurnished.  There was finally budget for it, apparently.  

Robert missed a good portion of the discussions the other teachers had about the new furniture, mostly because he didn’t really care, but also because Mr. and Mrs. Lee had asked to meet with him about their daughter during the time that the other teachers had set aside to talk about the lounge.  He went to the parent meeting instead; Robert only sat on one piece of furniture in the teacher’s lounge, and it wasn't like he’d be able to convince anyone else to keep his fluffy orange monstrosity of a recliner.

The Lees had called Robert a few weeks into the school year, saying they had in past years already received a number of calls about their daughter’s behavior, and were surprised that nothing had come up yet.  Robert assured them that all was well, but they wanted to meet with him anyway, and a date was set.  Two days later, Mr Lee called him again, furious.

“We’re already set to meet in three days, Mr. Lee,” Robert had said, trying to keep his voice even.  “Why don’t we discuss it in person then?”

The actual meeting was not as bad as Robert feared.  Mr. Lee had a chance to cool down in the three days between the call and the talk, and came into the classroom much more open-minded.  “Beatrice says that her last vocabulary quiz was graded unfairly,” the man said, with a quick glance over at his wife.  “Can you tell us what happened?”

Robert tried not to laugh, but had to crack a smile as he handed over the quiz in question.  “I do understand why your daughter thinks I’m being unfair.  She has shown a clear understanding of all of the vocabulary words.  However…”  He sat back to let them read.

Mrs. Lee laughed openly.  Mr. Lee handed the quiz back, looking somewhat sheepish.

“You understand that I can’t give her points for number eight,” Robert explained as he filed the quiz away again.  “No matter how correct she may or may not be.”

Question number eight on the vocabulary quiz asked for the definition of the word ‘stingy’. Trixie had written ‘Sebastian Rafferty’, and nothing else.  
With that misunderstanding cleared up, discussion turned to Trixie’s behavior generally.  Robert told them how much it had helped to give her extra challenge questions, tactfully posed to the whole class, but completed only by a few, or to have her help the other children.

“Your daughter is very bright,” Robert concluded, “And honestly, I think she’s acting out mostly because she’s bored.  She wants to move at a faster pace, than the rest of the class, and I will try my best to keep her engaged while she’s here.  I do think that some extra-curricular enrichment would be good for her.  I can give you some information on different programs…”

Mr. Lee was squinting at him, but Mrs. Lee smiled, subtly nudged her husband, and took the pamphlets that Robert had assembled for them.  They talked about what Trixie was already doing outside of school, how much he had liked helping her father build the tree house in their back yard, and ended up on a small tangent about wooden model building.

Robert had dabbled as a kid. Mr. Lee was a carpenter with a passion.

The two days later, Marissa cornered him again after chorus, a gleeful, gossip-seeking glint in her eyes.  Robert let his hands play whatever they would, from muscle memory, and braced himself.  His hands, picked God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

“Did you guys have your first kiss in that chair, or something?” Marissa asked him.  “Spencer really wants to keep it.”

Robert looked up from his unseasonable Christmas carols, and shrugged.  At least they were getting to the point. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would, actually,” she replied, sighing dramatically and plopping down next to him on the piano bench. “It’s just frustrating, watching you.  You keep saying no, and I’m going to start telling people he’s fair game after all.”

“You do that.” 

Marissa stared at his hands as they moved, then sighed again.  “You know it’s absolutely hideous, right?”

Robert laughed aloud, and the music faltered as he shook. “The chair? Yes.”

“You know he really wants to rescue it for you?”

He didn’t really have a response to that.  “I’ll make it into a Halloween costume for him if he does.  Might as well put it to some use.”

Marissa shook her head, and muttered something like, “Seriously, what is it? That chair needs a good burning.”

As it turned out, she hadn’t been kidding. 

On the last day of the month, when the new furniture arrived, Spencer knocked on the door of Robert’s classroom just before reading time, looking very self satisfied, and called out, “Special delivery for one Robbie Rotten!”

As the kids giggled, Robert rolled his eyes and called back, “Do I need to sign for it?”

“No,” Spencer answered.  “Apparently this is of no real value at all.”

Robert looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.  “Alright.  You got me. What is it?”

Spencer disappeared behind the door for a moment, then the orange furry recliner appeared in the doorway, with Spencer’s legs behind it.  Robert’s jaw dropped. He’d carried the chair all the way from the teacher’s lounge?

“What on earth is that?” Robert heard Stephanie ask from behind him.

Sebastian answered her promptly, and with the most disdain Robert had ever heard in an eight-year-old voice, “That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.”

“Where do you want it?” Spencer asked, voice slightly strained.  He turned, so he could see Robert, and raised an eyebrow.  At least, that was when Robert assumed the eyebrow had moved.  Robert wasn’t watching his eyebrows at the time.

Muscles were so much better defined when a person was using them, he thought idly.

“Umm… Robbie?”

Robert shook his head, brain finally catching up, and in a flash of inspiration, he pointed towards the carpet, before he hastened over to move the metal folding chair.

Once it was out of the way, he called, “Over here, Sportadork.  That’s going to be my new reading chair.”

Spencer dutifully carried the chair over to the right corner of the room, and put it down exactly where the other chair had been.  Then he and Robert adjusted it a few times, to see if it would fit better.  It didn’t, really.

It clashed horribly with the mottled green carpeting, and took up a good deal more space than the folding chair had, but that first day, when Robert sank into the familiar cushion and the children gathered as close as they could so they could all touch the fur, it felt amazingly right.

Spencer stayed for reading that day, and stayed, sitting quietly with his back against the front of the chair, while most of the students packed up for the day.  It was a Friday, so Stephanie settled back into her desk and pulled out her homework.  Ziggy walked in a few moments later, and sat down in the seat next to his sister.

He saw the new chair a few minutes afterwards, and his eyes grew wide.  “Is that a monster?” he asked.  “It kind of looks like a monster.”

“No, Ziggy, it’s just a chair,” Stephanie said.  “Sportacus brought it for Mr. Rotten.”

Ziggy frowned, then let it go. “Oh, okay.  Hi Sportacus!”

Spencer returned the boys enthusiastic wave with a little less gusto, but grinned as he pulled himself up to his feet.  He walked over to Robert’s desk, and leaned over it to see Robert pulling out the set of addition flashcards he had acquired a few weeks ago.  “I was going to run over to the cupcake place, see what they still have.  Shall I tell Katie to surprise you?”

“Only if it goes on my tab,” Robert told him.  “The whole order this time, not just my cake.  You need to stop buying me things.”

Spencer just nodded, and stuck out his little finger, mustache twitching as he tried to contain his grin.  Oh, good.  Another pinkie promise.  Robert was apparently never going to live that one down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, this one was a little rushed. I'm leaving for vacation in approximately an hour and a half, and I wanted to get this up before then, as I won't be bringing my computer with me. I'll be back on the 9th, hopefully inspired and rested and ready to dig into the next chapter.
> 
> Again, if anything is unclear or there are glaring errors, let me know. It may take me longer than usual to fix them, but I will as soon as I can. I'm particularly worried about the diabetes stuff. I did my homework and actually reached out to a friend on the subject, as well as drawing on my own work experience in health care. If any of it, especially around the actual blood sugar numbers, is off or confusing, I apologize. There won't be all that much of it in the story going forward.


	5. An Autumn Interlude (150 days left)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer drags Robbie around the town on a day he could have spent in his pajamas.

The eighth of October was a Saturday, and Robbie was up at six in the morning making chai spiced coffee and debating adding vanilla before he even realized what was happening.  He was half way through his first cup, hands curled around the warmth of the mug in the chill of the morning, when it occurred to him that he could have slept much later.

Robbie groaned and pulled his bathrobe tighter around himself.  At least he hadn’t gotten dressed, in his autopiloted haze.  He could still spend the whole day in his pajamas.

This was all Spencer’s fault, Robbie decided.  He’d been going on and on about setting up a bed time and a wake-up time, and sticking to it even on the weekends, when they had been walking downtown for snacks the other day.  Apparently it would help him sleep better.

Spencer had then decided to tell him all about his running schedule, because he was one of those people, who went jogging in the mornings.  Robbie looked over at the clock.  Almost seven. He’d probably be back by now.  He probably had plans for a nice fall Saturday.

Robbie didn’t remember dialing, but he was listening to his phone ringing a few minutes later, and wasn’t even really that surprised.

“Good morning, Robbie!” Spencer answered, unnaturally chipper as usual.  “You’re up early today.  What’s going on?”

Robbie rolled his eyes, and took another sip of coffee. “This is your fault,” he replied as he stood.  “I already made coffee, too, so it’s no use going back to bed. I’m up.”

Spencer laughed through the line.  “Is that all?”

“Well—” Robbie opened his refrigerator, suddenly thinking of breakfast for no particular reason at all, and found it rather embarrassingly empty. “No, actually.  I just realized that I don’t have any food, so I’m going to have to get dressed and go shopping.  And you are such a bad influence that I’m almost motivated enough to do it now, so I can be lazy later.”

“I was actually about to head to the farmer’s market myself,” Spencer said, and Robbie tensed up automatically.  “Okay, I can hear you cringing over the phone, but hear me out.  It’s not all vegetables, and we can go to the store too.  It’s apple season, and there will probably be all sorts of turnovers and good bread and cider doughnuts.  I’ll buy you a pie?”

That didn’t actually sound terrible.  “The farmer’s market has pie? Why was I not informed?”

Spencer was going to be insufferably smug about this.  Robbie could already tell, just from his voice.  He had that smirk on his face. “That sounds like you want to go with me,” Spencer said, in just the tone Robbie was expecting.  “I’ll pick you up, say, eight thirty?”

“Fine. That’s probably enough time to put on my face,” Robbie poured another mug of coffee, and took a deep breath of the steam.  “I’ll text you the address in a minute.”  They hung up without ceremony, and Robbie gave himself another moment with his coffee before forcing himself to get moving.

It wasn't until after he sent off the text that Robbie said to himself, “Well, there goes my pajama day.”

Robbie took the opportunity to enjoy a long and hot shower, before slicking his hair back and then spending a minute just standing in front of his closet.  He didn’t have much in the way of casual wear.  It had never bothered him before, but the idea of going to an outdoor market in his usual school clothes didn’t sit right.

It was immediately evident that Robbie owned far too many button-down shirts for any reasonable person, and that far too many of them were purple.  His collection of sweater-vests mocked him from their end of the closet, silently sneering at his struggles.  Unfortunately, his other options were limited to a few old tee shirts, all of which were either covered with grease or had large holes in them, one absolutely horrendous Christmas sweater, and one maroon sweater in slightly itchy but remarkably soft merino wool.  The choice, he supposed, was not hard.

As pants went, he had slacks, khakis, and one pair of black jeans that an old college roommate had practically forced him to buy so he had something other than khakis for the nights that said roommate dragged him to frats.  The jeans were probably a little tight.  There had been a lot of cake in his life since college.

Robbie ended up wearing them anyway. The sweater covered the little bit of muffin top he had, and he’d be with Spencer, so what kind of crazy person would be looking at his ass?

Even with a good bit of extra time taken, Robbie was ready to go only a few minutes past eight o’clock, and didn’t really want to spend a half hour twiddling his thumbs.  He gathered his grocery bags, flipped through his mail for a few minutes, puttered around the kitchen for a few more, then settled, inevitably, at the upright piano in the corner of the main room.  He’d meant to just run through his scales, major then melodic minor, to ground himself and use up some nervous energy.

By the time eight thirty rolled around, Robbie had pulled out his well-worn collection of Chopin’s Nocturnes. He had turned to one at random, and was letting the complex runs and nuances of phrasing take him into a calm and quiet place.  It was a nice world, just him and eighty-eight keys, surrounded by music, and he could just close his eyes and relax.

Until someone knocked on the door.

Robbie jumped back at the sudden noise, banged his knee on the underside of the keyboard with a startled yelp, and nearly fell to the floor trying to get up from the bench.  As he stumbled his way over to answer the door, he heard a muffled, “Robbie?  Are you okay?” from outside.

When he opened the door, Spencer was standing outside, concern written all over his face.  He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when Robbie waved a dismissive hand.  “I’m fine, Spencer,” he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as he could.  “I just tripped myself up a little.  It happens sometimes, to us mere mortals.”

“Right.” Spencer raised both eyebrows, and his mouth pulled a little to the left.  “Can I come in, or are you ready to go?”

Robbie opened the door a little wider, and retreated back into the apartment. “Of course, come in. Just give me a second to grab a few things,” he called over his shoulder.  

There was a moment when Robbie panicked a little, as he felt through various pockets for his keys.  How had thought he had nothing to do earlier?  He could have been putting his shoes by the door, so they weren't all strewn about, or washing the coffee mug he’d left in the sink.  His apartment wasn’t much, not on a teacher’s salary, but it could at least be clean.

“Was that you playing?” Spencer asked, a moment later.  When Robbie turned around, he was standing just barely in the doorway, staring at the piano in the corner.  “I heard it from outside, but I thought you were just listening.  You play?”

Robbie nodded slowly, thinking surely that was obvious from the presence of a piano and the open sheet music sitting on it.  “I’m surprised Marissa didn’t tell you.”

“Why would Marissa tell me that?”

“Because she likes to talk about people, and she’s quite proud of how she convinced me to accompany the chorus,” Robbie said, finally spotting his keys next to his wallet on the kitchen counter, and grabbed both. He turned around, triumphant, to see Spencer’s questioning look.  “Oh, come on. You know the answer to this one. She bribed me. With cake.”

Spencer let out a huff of a laugh, and Robbie was pretty sure he heard a muttered, “Of course,” as he shook his head.  “You really are that easy, aren’t you?”

Well, that didn’t even merit a response, so Robbie instead gestured to the door, and said, “I’m ready to go now. Let’s leave before I change my mind about this farmer’s market thing.”

They left almost immediately after that, and Robbie barely managed to fold himself into the passenger seat of Spencer’s tiny little eco-friendly car.  There was a whole display dedicated to showing off just how little fuel the thing was using, it had an electrical outlet connection, and so many other little bells and whistles inside that Robbie half expected a set of foot peddles to pop out under the steering wheel.  He carefully made no comment about how cramped his legs were.

“So, tell me, Robbie,” Spencer said, as he started the car. “How do you manage to have no food at all in your apartment, and not realize it until now?”

Robbie shrugged, hoping to move on, but there was Spencer, with the real confusion in his eyes, and so Robbie took it upon himself to explain.  “I’m not entirely sure,” he said, which now that he said it, was not a particularly good explanation.  “I guess I just finished the last of the leftovers last night, and then I made brownies.  I have one egg and a stick of butter, but that doesn't do me much good.”

Spencer appeared, for a second, to be so appalled that he didn’t even know where to start.  His mouth was scrunched into a tight line as he watched the road, and his mustache was twitching again.  Eventually, he asked, “You made brownies last night, and don’t have any this morning?”

“It was Friday night,” Robbie said, rolling his eyes when this did not seem to reassure his friend at all. “I admit that my choices may not have been the best, but I wasn’t entirely in my right mind. It was kind of a long week.”

“Robbie, the week was exactly as long as every other week,” Spencer told him, and Robbie could see the wheels turning in his head.  The man must be seeing an enormous and very long term project in him. Robbie couldn't really blame him for being unnerved by it.

They drove in silence for a while, Robbie playing the right hand part of one of the nocturnes on his knee while Spencer slowly relaxed.  It wasn’t uncomfortable, necessarily, but Robbie was very glad when Spencer looked over at him and asked, “You really ate a whole batch of brownies by yourself, in one evening?”

“Uh, yes,” Robbie replied.  “That’s pretty crazy for you to think about, isn’t it.”

Spencer nodded, turning his attention back to the road.  “I eat one brownie and I’m in for an extra shot.  But you don’t need to worry about that.  You can just…”

“Yeah.”

Spencer sighed, but was finally back to smiling a little bit. “Please at least tell me there was protein and vegetables in the leftovers?”

“What are you, my mother?” Robbie asked, looking over at Spencer with a raised eyebrow.  “Is tomato a vegetable?”

“I guess.”

Robbie grinned, and clapped his hands once before telling Spencer, “Then yes, actually, there was.  I had leftover lasagna.”

“What happened to that taking care of yourself thing that we talked about?”

“Friday nights are rough,” Robbie said, looking out at the very populated field they were pulling up to.  “This it?”

The answer to that question was quite obviously yes, as Spencer parked in the line of cars and turned off the engine.  The both got out of the car, and Robbie took a moment to try and stretch out his back and legs as subtly as he could. He probably wasn’t fooling anyone, but the cracks and pops from his ankles and hips and spine sounded more ominous than they were, and Spencer wasn’t making any disapproving mother-hen noises this time.  Maybe he had actually gotten away with it. Probably because Spencer was distracted by all the produce.

“So, I’m following your lead on this one,” Robbie started, turning to see Spencer looking a little glazed over.  There were far too many apples, probably in all sorts of varieties and everything, beyond Robbie, but really?  “Spencer? You there?” Robbie asked, waving a hand. “Hello? Earth to Magnificent Flip-Flop?”

Spencer started a little, but a second later was smirking at him again, and saying, “Remind me to move your seat back before we leave.  You should have said something.”

Right. Of course Spencer had noticed. 

Robbie had no idea where to even begin at the market, so he merely followed Spencer around to the different stalls, pretending it wasn’t awkward when Spencer appeared to be friends with each and every person there, and not following one bit while the other man debated different varieties of apples in terms of crispness, or summer vs winter squash.  Robbie could recognize apples, tomatoes, and pumpkins, and was pretty sure there was something at one of the stalls that was called eggplant, for whatever reason. The whole place was somewhat overwhelming.

At one of the stalls, Robbie let slip that he didn’t know what a turnover was, and was handed a lovely, golden brown and sugar-covered piece of pastry alarmingly quickly.

“Robbie, almost half of what you eat comes from a bakery.  How do you not know what a turnover is?” Spencer asked, as Robbie took a small bite of what he discovered was basically just a pocket apple pie, full of sweet filling and warm spices.

He shrugged in response to the question.  “Usually any sort of fruit in the name of something makes me not want it,” he said, ignoring the utter amusement on the face of the apple woman.  “However, this lovely lady may have converted me.”  He winked at the woman, who just laughed and asked if he was interested in any of her granny-smiths.  Robbie didn’t have the heart to tell her he had no idea what she was talking about.

Spencer managed to pick out a small bag of apples that he assured Robbie would be wonderful in baking, and the woman slipped a printed recipe into the bag.  Robbie left surprisingly happy about the whole exchange.

The cider doughnut stall was another hidden gem.  Robbie could have stayed there all day, trying out the different versions of the doughnuts.  They were amazing even completely plain, with just the warmth of apple and spices.  Maple glaze was rarely bad, but here it was incredible.  The doughnuts were even available with bacon on them.  Not the cheap bacon bits you could buy from the store, either, but actual bacon, still warm enough to melt the icing a bit, crumbled on top of the doughnuts.  They were delicious.  Robbie bought two dozen without a moment’s hesitation.  After a short game of keep-away, which mostly involved Robbie holding the bag over his head, Spencer managed to snag one, and nibbled at it with a knowing smirk on his face.

An hour later, Spencer was weighed down by a what must have been every single leafy green thing available to him, and everything else besides, and Robbie had collected a few bags of his own.  Admittedly, one bag was entirely cider doughnuts, but Spencer had talked him into buying a few different vegetables, in addition to the apples, by assuring him they were quite sweet when cooked correctly, and Robbie had been curious about the Butternut squash.

The trip to the grocery store, which included lunch at the hot food bar in the front of the store, was still faster than their leisurely exploration of the market.  This was partly because Robbie had been to the grocery store before, and Spencer didn’t need to show it off to him, and partly because it became slightly competitive around the bread aisle.

They were neck and neck for a while, then Robbie gained a small advantage when he rode his cart all the way down one aisle, and Spencer nearly collapsed from laughter before yelling, “You overgrown child!” after him.  That lead was quickly lost when Robbie knocked over a display of coffee cans, and had to re-stack them or face Spencer’s disapproving frown. Spencer got behind again though, when he spent longer at the seafood counter than Robbie did at the deli, and never quite caught up.  His cashier made a valiant effort, though, especially once Robbie’s cashier joined in on Robbie’s trash talking.  In the end, the extra vegetables did him in; the cashier had to weigh them and punch in the product code, instead of just scanning bar codes.

As soon as he had paid, Robbie carried his bags over to where Spencer was finishing up, and settled into as impatient a pose as he could manage.  He tried to school his face into a put-upon frown, but by the time Spencer joined him and they headed out to the car again, he was grinning smugly.  Spencer had rolled his eyes and blown out an exasperated sigh, but there was a glint in his eyes that read amused rather than irritated.

Once they settled into the car again, Spencer looked over and said, “So, you ready to go home?”

Robbie really, really wasn’t.  It was odd, because he’d been so ready to just sit around in his bathrobe and play piano and order takeout pizza, but Robbie didn’t want to go back and be alone in his apartment quite yet.  He shook his head, and Spencer shrugged.

“Well, we’ll go to your place first to drop off the shopping,” Spencer told him, starting the car again. “You’re the one with ice cream and frozen waffles.”

There were frozen egg rolls in his bags as well, but that was beside the point.

Spencer helped Robbie carry his groceries up to his apartment, and then tried to help with the game of Refrigerator Tetris that followed.  Robbie ended up waving him out of the kitchen and put away only the items that needed to go in the refrigerator or the freezer.  He left everything else on the kitchen table, proclaimed that he’d put it away later, and ushered the both of them back to the car.

They pulled up to Spencer’s building, only a few minutes later, and Robbie silently noted that it was really only a few blocks away.  They could carpool in the mornings.  Preferably in Robbie’s car.

Robbie blinked, pushed those irrelevant thoughts aside, and helped Spencer with his groceries, and significantly more difficult game of Refrigerator Tetris.  Spencer disappeared into what Robbie assumed was his bedroom for a bit, as Robbie was trying to find a place for the red and green cabbages he’d bought. By the time Robbie was done putting the last few groceries into cabinets, Spencer was back.  His smile was a little tight.

“You okay, there?” Robbie asked him, lowering his voice a little.  “You look like you could do with a nap.  I can go home…”

Spencer shook his head, and settled onto one of the swiveling barstools he had up against the counter below the window.  “Just a little headache.  Should be gone soon.”

The man accepted and drained the full glass of water Robbie handed him a minute later, but wouldn't say any more about it.  He moved the conversation on, without any further ado, to the rest of the afternoon.

“What do we do now?”

Robbie sighed, but didn’t press.  “I don’t know, Spencer,” he said instead. “We can sit here and watch TV if you want.  I just don’t want to go home yet.”

“Ah, actually, we can’t. I don’t have a TV. Hmm…” Spencer cocked his head to the side, squinting.  From previous experience, Robbie was pretty sure this was is thinking face, so he bit down his reaction to the lack of a TV so as to not distract the man.  Honestly, he wasn’t even that surprised.  A little disappointed, maybe.

“I need pictures of the foliage to send to my brother,” Spencer finally said.  “He’s in Germany, hiking the Alps, and he keeps sending me pictures and saying it can’t possibly be so beautiful at home.  I want to prove him wrong.”

Robbie snorted, but had no better suggestions, so they drove out of town to one of the easier hiking trails Spencer knew of.  There were no other cars there, and for a second the thought that Spencer had brought them out here to be murdered flashed through his head, before Robbie dismissed it as ridiculous.  Horror movies never happened on gorgeous sunny afternoons.

The scenery was absolutely stunning, Robbie had to admit.  The sun had been out in a cloudless and brilliantly blue sky all day, and that was a perfectly complementary backdrop to the bright oranges and reds of the fall leaves.

It would have been perfect, if it hadn’t taken forever to get to the top of the hill to the outlook Spencer kept telling him about.  It would have helped if Spencer hadn’t kept darting ahead to take pictures on his phone, only to call over his shoulder for Robbie to keep up, or if Robbie hadn’t been huffing and puffing within ten minutes.

“Robbie, we’re almost there,” Spencer called from atop the boulder he had climbed.  “You can do it, I know you can!”

Robbie was leaning against said boulder, lungs squeezing themselves in his chest, and calves already starting to ache.  Maybe Spencer really had brought him here to kill him. “Have I told you…recently…that I hate you?” he asked with a slightly pathetic wheeze.  Spencer laughed and climbed back down once he had his picture.

“You don’t hate me,” Spencer told him confidently.  “You just hate that I’m in better shape than you are.  It’s okay.”

It really was only five more minutes to the lookout knoll, and Robbie managed without too much pain.  Spencer came bounding back to him just as he was about to break through the trees to the open area, eyes alight and grin firmly in place.

The view was pretty spectacular.  Robbie felt his eyes widen as he took it all in, and he was pretty sure his jaw dropped open.  The ground fell away in front of them, leaving a clear view of the surrounding hills and their resplendent colors, and down the reservoir to the east of Lazytown, which was sparkling in the afternoon sun.  The town itself looked small, quaint, from so far away.

Spencer, of course, was looking smug again. “So,” he drawled, “Worth the walk?”

“Yeah,” Robbie replied.  “Yeah, I think it was.”

They sat on one of the benches until Robbie was breathing normally again, and Spencer was starting to vibrate a little from staying still too long.  The walk down was easier, and Spencer kept to a slower pace, so Robbie was able to enjoy it a little more.  There was one branch that nearly hit him in the face after Spencer had pushed it out of the way, but Robbie gave it his best angry teacher glare, and it didn’t bother him any more.

Spencer had giggled at that, and probably taken his picture.

“It occurs to me that you owe me pie,” Robbie said as they climbed back into Spencer’s car.  “I would like my pie now, please.”

Spencer laughed. “I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted. “But, we can fix this. To Lazy Cakes!” They went straight to the bakery, and Robbie devoured a beautiful piece of apple pie, complete with ice cream and caramel, while Spencer sipped at his herbal tea.  At three in the afternoon on a Saturday, they were not the only people there, but were able to find a corner where Robbie didn’t feel crowded by the other customers.

It was nearly dinnertime when Spencer dropped Robbie off outside his apartment, and Robbie could have stayed out all night finding things to do.  However, it had occurred to him, as he finished his pie, that despite the indulgent smile on his friend’s face, Spencer probably had better things to do on a Saturday night than hang out with a co-worker.  He’d quietly asked if he could go home.

“Have a good night, Robbie,” Spencer told him as he clambered out of the car.  “We should do this again sometime.”

Robbie shrugged.  Despite having bought vegetables, and hiked for the first time in his life, he had actually enjoyed himself. “Maybe we could do something I’m more comfortable with, next time.  Like binge Netflix shows.”

“Right,” Spencer said, in a tone that suggested he was as likely to sit watching TV all day as Robbie was to run a marathon.  “We’ll see.”

Robbie waved from the doorway as Spencer drove off, then went inside, and dropped onto the overstuffed couch in front of the TV.  He could order pizza in a bit, he decided.  He’d have leftovers, either to eat tomorrow or during the week at some point.

There was nothing good on TV, somehow. On a Saturday night.  It was outrageous.

Robbie ended up baking apple turnovers, using the recipe the farmer’s market lady had given him, and lamented that he was the only one there to eat them fresh from the oven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I present to you, fluffy garbage. I regret nothing.
> 
> In all seriousness, though, I needed to get them out of the school. They needed to start hanging out outside of their workplace. I had a whole other day planned for them, which they will probably have at another time, but these dorks wanted to go shopping instead.
> 
> In other news, I have two things. One, thank you so much to everyone who commented. My family was quite confused as to why I was so giddy while navigating airports and rental car facilities, but it was because I was reading and rereading comments on this fic. Two, I am, on the side, working on a Sad for LazyTown, because my sister gave me an errant suggestion, and now it's in my brain and won't go away. Is anyone interested in that?  
> *EDIT FOR CLARITY* The Sad is a completely separate AU one-shot that has nothing to do with Teach Me To Sing. In fact, it will probably delay the next chapter of Teach Me To Sing, possibly a lot. Still interested?


	6. That Last, Loveliest Smile (140 Days To Go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie burns though October, and prepares for one of his favorite holidays. Spencer is not particularly good at these sorts of preparations.

On the ninth of October, Robbie slept in on principle.  The fact that he had been too keyed up and restless to sleep until around 4am helped, but eventually his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten anything but midnight apple turnovers the night before.  He purposely didn’t touch his phone while the coffee was brewing, or as he contemplated his refrigerator and decided to make chocolate chip pancakes for lunch.

Spencer didn’t need two full weekend days dealing with him.

During that week, Robbie took a few evenings to pull out and evaluate the costumes in the back of his closet, in anticipation of Halloween. He was behind on it this year, after pulling extra duty with the Meanswells and being dragged all over by overly-excited gym teachers, so making up a new one was probably out of the question, but it’d been four years since he’d been Dracula.  He debated between it and the circus ringmaster, and concluded that it would probably come down to how much make-up he wanted to put on on a Monday morning.

He also started carpooling with Spencer. Driving over to pick up Spencer in the mornings was maybe not his favorite thing.  Spencer had a taste for punk rock that Robbie couldn’t quite ever find it in himself to complain about, and liked to chide Robbie about rolling stops and speed limits. However, he also bounced along to the music in the passenger seat like a child whenever they drove together, and had saved Robbie’s coffee from spilling at least three times already, and honestly, that pretty much made up for the trouble in Robbie’s book.

Either no one noticed that they started driving together every day, or they just didn’t say anything about it.  Whatever it was, Robbie was grateful.

On the sixteenth of October, Spencer woke him up with a somewhat frantic phone call.

“I was going to call you yesterday, but, well… Anyway. A few different classes made me lists of movies I need to watch,” he said, as Robbie waited for the point in a sleepy haze.  “I don’t know if I can handle this much Disney on my own.”

Robbie had scoffed, and told him, “You probably can’t.  Also, you should come over and use my TV, seeing as _you don’t have one_.”

Spencer tried to argue half-heartedly for a few minutes that he had a laptop, and that was perfectly fine for the DVDs he’d borrowed from the library.  It took very little insistence from Robbie before he was on Robbie’s doorstep, knapsack full of DVD cases, complaining about the judgmental look he’d gotten from the librarian. His car was nowhere to be seen, so Robbie was left to conclude that Spencer had just jogged over, and not even broken a sweat.

They’d sat through two of the animated films before Robbie started to feel hungry and Spencer needed to move, so they’d gone for lunch.  Spencer had stuck around for the whole of the afternoon and into the evening, and had almost fallen asleep on Robbie’s couch. He only went home once it started getting dark.

“I need to get home to bed,” he said, and it sounded almost like an apology.  “I’m sure you need to get to sleep soon yourself.  It’s going to be an early morning.”

It was an early morning, and but Robbie stayed up until about 1AM coming up with a comprehensive list of movies Spencer would need to watch if he wanted to understand all the jokes and references the kids made, and another of movies Robbie would like to watch with him even though they wouldn’t help at all.  He wasn’t going to give them to him, obviously, but organizing five lists into one was soothing enough that he only lay wide awake for an hour afterwards.

On the twenty-first of October (a Friday), Spencer came bounding up to Robbie’s classroom door just as the last bus was called.  Stephanie was doing word problems at her desk while Robbie helped Ziggy keep from getting glitter glue all over the poster he was decorating.  Spencer took two steps into the room, mouth already open, stared at the kids for a minute with wide eyes, then tipped his head back and swore emphatically at the ceiling in Icelandic.

Robbie’s jaw may have hit the floor. 

Stephanie and Ziggy, of course, carried on as if nothing had happened, and while Robbie was distracted, Ziggy squeezed out a too-large glop of purple glitter glue onto the poster, and squeaked when Robbie’s sleeve trailed through it.  Stephanie had looked up at the foreign words, seen that it was Spencer who’d said them, and shrugged.

Spencer took a deep breath, then looked back to Robbie’s stunned expression.

<<In front of the children? Really?>> Robbie asked, also in Icelandic, as soon as he had the brain power to put the words together.

Spencer made a sort of strangled noise in his throat, and flushed pink to the tips of his ears.  <<Sorry?>> he managed, after a few false starts. <<I forgot they stayed late with you.>>

<<And this is so upsetting to you because…?>>  Robbie raised an eyebrow.  <<You teach these brats.  You love them.>>

<<Well, yes.  But I have a favor to ask, and it’s got a deadline,>> Spencer said. <<And they can’t hear about it.>>  
Robbie’s eyebrow climbed another half-once or so up his face, but he shrugged and said, <<We’ll talk about it later, then.>>

He turned back to Ziggy, who had managed to not make too much of a mess while Robbie wasn’t paying attention.  There were a few minutes where Robbie couldn’t help beyond spelling out words, because he was wiping up extra glitter with tissues, but it was all manageable. Robbie had a little purple glitter on his sleeve at the end of it, but that had already been there.

Spencer had been waved over to the desk next to Stephanie.  She appeared to be finished with her worksheet. “Do you guys have a best friend code or something?” Stephanie asked him, “Or was that actually another language?”

“It’s Icelandic,” Spencer explained.  “My whole family is from Iceland, so I grew up speaking it with them.  That’s why I sound so funny.”  As he said this, Spencer’s voice lost a little of its robustness, and Robbie was pretty sure he’d see the man’s shoulders curling in if he looked over.

Out of the corner of his eye, Robbie saw Stephanie frown. “You don’t sound funny, Sportacus,” she said, in her most serious voice.  “You sound like you, and I like it.”

“Thank you, Stephanie,” Spencer managed, after a pause, and Robbie glanced over to see the girl with her arms wrapped around his shoulders. There was another pause, before he asked, “Are you done with your work for Monday?”

Stephanie nodded, and earned herself a pointed and disbelieving look. “I have to define all my vocabulary words, but I can do that this weekend, with Daddy’s dictionary.  My math problems are all done, though.”

“Well, okay, then.  Do you think you could read to me?” Spencer asked.  Stephanie’s eyes widened, and Robbie watched her chew on her lip for a minute. “I’d ask Robbie, but he’s kind of busy right now.  What do you say?”

After a glance over at Robbie and Ziggy and their glitter adventure, Stephanie agreed pretty quickly, and dragged Spencer over to sit at the foot of the orange reading chair with her.  She read through Oh The Places You’ll Go and Ferdinand, which were really only in the room for Ziggy’s sake and far below her reading level, but any practice was good practice.  Spencer asked her questions about them, and laughed aloud at the bull sitting in the middle of the ring, smelling the flowers in all the ladies’ fancy hats.

When Ziggy’s poster was as good as it was going to get, and 3:45 was creeping slowly but surely up upon them, Robbie helped Ziggy put all the art supplies away, and turned to let Stephanie know it was time to pack up.  As he did, his breath caught in his throat.

Sportacus was lying on his back on the carpet, his head resting in Stephanie’s lap, eyes closed and completely relaxed.  She was playing with his hair, asking why his mustache was black when his hair was blond, and he just chuckled and said he was a PE teacher, not a biologist.  That lead to a whole new tangent of “How would a biologist know?” and “Is your mustache curly too?” and “Would Mr Rotten know? He knows a lot of things about science.”

Oh, this was not good.

Something squeezed at Robbie’s lungs, and it was the wheezing gasp he drew in that caught their attention.  “Stephanie, your dad should be here any minute,” he heard himself saying.  “You should probably get your stuff together.”

She’d been up and headed to the closet as quick as you please, and as expected, Dr Meanswell was leaning in through the doorway only a few minutes later.  Robbie and Spencer both waved as they headed out, and Spencer had called out something about bringing their A-game on Monday, for some fitness assessment thing.

As soon as they were gone, Spencer had turned to Robbie and opened his mouth to say something, but Robbie waved a shaking hand in his face.  “I have needed to pee for the last four hours,” he said, trying to keep his teacher voice on for just another minute. “Whatever you need to say to me can wait another two minutes.”

With that, Robbie fled.  It was pathetic, but that was really the only word for it.

His thoughts just would not shut up, and there were no lists to make of them, no flow charts, no brainstorm maps.  It was nonsense.  Of course Spencer was comfortable with the kids.  Of course his relationship with them was different than Robbie’s. Of course the combination of a happy bubbly student and a happy bubbly teacher would be sickeningly adorable.  But for some reason, Robbie’s brain was having none of that sensible logic stuff, and had decided that Spencer being cute with the kids was something to panic over.

If she’s so comfortable with all the other teachers, his mind supplied, what would she need you for, other than worksheets? And maybe he only came by so he could hang out with the fun people, even if they were only eight.

Absolute nonsense. Of course.

Being alone in the bathroom, where he could berate himself in peace and revel in the almost-silence, helped.  A splash of cold water on his face helped more. His heart was still pounding in his chest as he walked into the room, but at least he was having enough rational thoughts that he could put all the irrational ones in a box in the back of his brain, and look Spencer in the face.

“So,” Spencer started, almost as soon as Robbie walked through the door.  “Íslenska.  You want to explain that to me?”

Robbie shrugged, and made a point of crossing the room and flopping down into the orange recliner before answering.  That stupid accent should not be so endearing.  It wasn’t, on Glanni.  “You’re not the only one with family from across the sea.  You know that, right?  I mean, I don’t have the crazy name to prove it, but…”

Spencer pulled one of the desk chairs over to sit next to the recliner, and smiled that indulgent little smile of his as he shook his head.  “I should have known,” he muttered, possibly to himself, “the moment you could pronounce Íþróttaálfurinn.  You didn’t even hesitate.”

For that, Robbie gave him a delicate snort, and a moment of silence as he laid his head back against the recliner, and settled into the cushions.  “You said there was something you needed to talk to me about?”

“Ah, yes.  Halloween.” Robbie’s eyes snapped back open, and he cocked an eyebrow in Spencer’s direction.  “I just realized today that the teachers are expected to have costumes.  And I don’t. Have a costume.”

Well, Robbie could see exactly where this was going. “And I come into this how?” he asked.

“I might have panicked a little at lunch, and Marissa said you were the master,” Spencer explained.  “I’m tight on time, and I don’t have a lot of budget. The kids expect it to be amazing, and I have no idea what I’m doing. Will you help me?”

Spencer sat there, his eyes wide and pleading, awful mustache twitching nervously, as if he actually thought Robbie would possibly tell him no.

“What would I get out of it?” Robbie asked, just because he liked watching Spencer squirm.  He was pretty sure that his face gave him away, though, because Spencer relaxed almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“The gratitude of a good friend?” Spencer suggested, “Or maybe an extra run to Lazy Cakes, on me?  Would that work?”

Robbie pretended to think about it for a while, then shook his head.  “I think maybe you can just owe me a favor,” he said, smirking a little.  “Did you have any idea of what you wanted to be, or shall we just design you a Sportacus superhero look?”

Spencer blinked at him for a second, eyes wide and confused and far too blue to be real.  “I was going to ask for suggestions…” he said, eventually.  “But could you really make something like that? In only a week?”

“I may have to consult another party on design,” Robbie said, as he made a show of inspecting his fingernails and tried very hard not to grin at how much awe had seeped into Spencer’s tone.  “But yes, I think we could manage a sports hero uniform.  I’ll have to measure you at some point, probably this weekend.  And you’ll have to promise to leave me alone so I can get it done.”

Spencer nodded along, but raised an eyebrow at the last request.  “I’ll let you work, Robbie, but you need to promise me that you will sleep.  Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Great. Spencer was being all perceptive again.  That was never anything but unhelpful, really.  But Robbie had to concede that there was probably not a foundation or cover-up in the world that would hide the bags under his eyes.  It had been a rough week in the sleep department.  Robbie was running on about two hours today, and that had been almost fourteen hours ago.

Robbie sighed dramatically, both to irritate Spencer and because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep this promise, but he held out his little finger and rolled his eyes when Spencer wrapped his firmly around it. “I’ll call up my consultant.  When are you free this weekend?”

“Anytime, really.”

“Well, we should probably get the measuring done early, so I can draw patterns and get started as soon as possible,” Robbie told him, earning a nod and a small smirk as soon as he said the word early.  “Can you be over around noon?”

The smirk grew insufferably wider. “That’s…early?” Spencer asked, in a tone that meant he was about three seconds from laughing in Robbie’s face.  
Robbie just shrugged, and pulled out his phone.  “I’ll be sleeping in tomorrow, per our agreement from _five seconds ago_.”

“Oh. Right.”  Robbie wasn’t looking, so he couldn’t say for sure, but Spencer seemed almost pleased by this, despite the fact that, in hindsight, Robbie had been a little bit snippy with that particular remark. “Noon it is.”

Robbie nodded, and said, “I thought so.” He didn’t even look over at Spencer.

“Sooo…” Spencer started, and Robbie knew this tone too.  This was the one he used when he wanted something, and was pretty sure he could get it just by virtue of his very blue eyes. “Are you doing anything this afternoon?”

Sorry, Robbie thought.  Nice try, no dice.  He said, “I’m designing a costume for a superhero.  You promised to leave me alone for this stuff?” then waved dismissively at him as he scrolled through his contacts.  Spencer sat and waited next to the chair as Robbie tapped out a few texts.

“Seriously,” Robbie told him, “I’m about to be very busy, and I’m sure you have better things to do than hang around and watch me.”

Spencer shrugged, and stuck around while Robbie puttered about, and eventually started packing his things up for the day.  He leaned in the doorway, humming tunelessly to himself, until Robbie finally shot him a pointed look and asked, “Is there a reason you’re still here?”

“You’re my ride home, Robbie,” Spencer reminded him gently.  “You remember driving here together this morning, right?”

Robbie had forgotten, but Spencer was absolutely not going to get him to admit it under any circumstances. He merely packed a bit faster, checked his phone when it buzzed again, and walked out to the car as if nothing was wrong.  The drive to Spencer’s apartment was quiet, even though they were listening to more of Spencer’s ridiculous music, and once there Spencer climbed out of the car with just a “Thanks, Robbie.”

He said it every day now, with that same little smile and a wave, and Robbie was starting to feel bad about his half-baked plan to ask for gas money.  Between that and the coffee, they were probably about even, right?

An hour later, he was sitting in a booth at Lazy Cakes with Marissa and the school’s art teacher, Naomi, trying to explain a plan that he hadn’t thought through and didn’t entirely understand himself.  There was a large slice of red velvet cake at his elbow, but he was ignoring it in favor of trying to string words together coherently.

“I can’t believe you just sent him off to me,” he was complaining at Marissa. “I can’t be the solution to all his problems.”  
Marissa just rolled her eyes.  “No, but you can be the solution to this one.  With the help of your favorite ladies, of course. So what’s the plan?”

“I mentioned off-hand that I could make Sportacus an actual superhero suit, and he liked that idea. Unfortunately, that’s where I run into…” He looked over to Naomi, who was already scribbling away on a paper napkin. “Perfect. She’s got ideas already.  I was going to skip the cape, and if you’re doing the stupid underwear-over-tights thing, I will get you a new napkin.”

Naomi said nothing, but the unimpressed glance he received before she turned back to her sketching said all he needed to know.  It was Marissa who jumped in to defend the other woman, even though she obviously didn’t need it.  “Robbie, have some faith.”

“Don’t call me that,” Robbie told her flatly, and glared when she giggled a bit.  “Seriously.  Robert, please.”

Marissa raised an eyebrow. “Spencer calls you Robbie all the time.”

“Only because I can’t make him stop.” Spencer called him Robbie. He called himself Robbie, now.  Robbie was for people who infuriated him on a regular basis, and Marissa wasn’t quite there yet.

That wasn’t good enough, apparently. “Whatever.  Robert.”  There was attitude with that, and Naomi coughed a little, probably covering something that Robbie hadn’t been able to discern as Marissa rolled her eyes.  “Have a little faith, and tell me more.”

“Well, I figure he needs to be able to move in the thing, as he will undoubtedly decide that the parade is a perfect time to do feats of acrobatics,” Robbie said, though it came out more as grumbling than anything else.  “And blue is really good for him. I don’t know.  He used to wear jersey number 10 when he played soccer, I think?”

Naomi pushed one napkin towards Robbie a minute later, with two rough sketches on it, and reached for another one.  “Thoughts?” she asked, as she started on the new napkin.  “I have one more idea, but if you like one of those…”

“Mmm. I’m not sure about the breastplate.”  Robbie squinted at the drawings, trying to imagine them in 3D and in fabric.  “The guy flips around and encourages kids to exercise and eat their vegetables. What on earth would he need armor for?  And the other might work, but pants would probably be better.  It’s supposed to snow, I think.”

Naomi just nodded, and looked down at the sketch she was working on.  “I was trying to play on the Spartacus thing,” she said as she tilted her head, then turned the napkin, “But you’re right.  Nix that.”  She then proceeded to start yet another sketch.

Marissa was trying to steal the first napkin from Robbie without ripping it when Naomi passed him the second, and he relinquished the first.  On one side, there was a pair of sketches of a third idea, and it was really the best of the three. Robbie nodded, thinking that he could probably manage a tee-shirt, vest, and glorified track pants.  He was already playing with ideas for collars in his mind when he turned the napkin over, and saw something completely different on the other side.

“What’s this one?” he asked, sliding it back so he could show Naomi.

She shrugged, took a sip of her tea, and said, “That’s yours.”

Marissa cackled from the other side of the bench, as Robbie blinked stupidly. “Mine?”

“Oh yes,” Naomi explained, the barest hint of a smug smile touching the corners of her mouth.  “You’re his villain.  The one who wants everyone to sit down and be quiet.”  Robbie gaped, as Marissa continued with her hysterics.  “I considered making you a side-kick, but you really wouldn’t be into that, and besides, this way you can just bicker all day, and it will work out.”

Robbie took a deep breath, and pulled the napkin back over to his side of the table.  “Why do my pants come up to my armpits?”

“I was trying to make you look as tall and skinny as possible.  It’s not hard, with you, but if we make your legs look even longer, and give you all vertical stripes…”

Ah.  That actually made sense.  “I see.  That’d probably work better in a comic book than in real life, but I see where you’re going with it. Can it be purple?”

Robbie let himself grin, and argue colors and fabrics, and suddenly his Halloween plans were so much better than they had been that morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took a super long time. I'm very sorry about that. It's also short, and not all that much happens, and I'm sorry about that too. There was From Whence We Came, then a blizzard stranded me at work for almost two whole days, and work has been awful generally. There are a million excuses. You're probably not interested in them.
> 
> If the <> bothers anyone, or if anyone has other suggestions for how to show what is in English and what is in Icelandic, let me know. I don't want to do the google translate thing, only to have to translate it back anyway.
> 
> I will get to Halloween in the next chapter, for real. Thank you all so much for the feedback.
> 
> Two bits of news, one of which is really old news. If you don't want to read my shameless self promotion, stop here. If you haven't seen it, check out From Whence We Came, the one-shot I mentioned last chapter. Robbie is a seal-man. I hear it's decent.
> 
> Also, if you have any ideas for me, or just want to chat about things, hit me up on at sporta-helpme.tumblr.com. I'm looking for other things to try writing, along-side this, or for any ideas to put into this.


	7. Halloween (134 Days to go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Halloween at Lazytown Elementary, and Mr. Rotten is in his element for once. At least, for a few minutes.

Halloween was essentially useless as a school day, so there was really no point in pretending anyone would be in a mood for fractions and vocabulary.  At least, that was how Lazytown Elementary felt about it.  Teachers were required to at least try to get some work done until a slightly early lunch-time, but past noon, it was all celebration.

Robbie had explained the altered schedule to Spencer while measuring him for his costume, starting with the fact that Spencer really didn’t even need to be at the school until around eleven.

“But how will I get there, then?” Spencer had asked, and he’d even seemed legitimately confused, as if he didn't have his own car, and wouldn’t be able to commute without Robbie.  Robbie had managed a blank and unimpressed look from where he was kneeling. “No, I know, but I’d rather just go in early.  I’ll find something to do.”

There was no real argument for that, so Robbie moved the tape measure from around Spencer’s thigh to his inseam, noted the lengths, and told him, “Suit yourself.”

Spencer had laughed at that, and it took Robbie an embarrassingly long time to figure out what was so funny.  It wasn't even funny, really.

So Robbie was outside Spencer’s apartment at 6:30, as usual, on Halloween.  The other man appeared in his costume, complete with the ridiculous racing-striped beanie he’d apparently knitted himself, with a few large paper bags to set in the back seat before they left, and Robbie’s purple thermos held in the crook of his elbow somehow.

“Oh, good.  What did you make me today?” Robbie asked, rolling his eyes as Spencer climbed into the passenger seat and stuck the thermos into his cup-holder.  Spencer merely shrugged, and turned the radio on.  His pre-set rock station blared, and Robbie sighed.

The coffee was pumpkin flavored, probably with actual pumpkin goop and through some crazy health-nut alchemy, but it was good.

“There’s a second one in one of the bags,” Spencer told him, out of the blue.  Robbie shot him a surprised glance, and the man chuckled a little. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll finish that before we even get to the school.  I made a second one, though. It’s a holiday, I’m allowed to spoil you a little.”

Robbie just rolled his eyes and took another sip of pumpkin coffee, noting with some irritation that he had already drunk about half of it. “You know, you really don't need to do this anymore. I’m pretty much off the cocoa-coffee now.”

“I like to. Don’t worry about it.”  Spencer shrugged, reached around for the second thermos, which was an alarming shade of neon orange, and placed it between his knees. He fiddled with the radio volume for a second before settling back into his seat.

Neither of them said any more until they reached the school, at which point Spencer traded the now-empty purple thermos for the second one.  They wished each other luck, and were about to part ways at the door, when Marissa ran up to them with a camera.

“I need a picture of you two while you’re both still clean,” she explained, and had them pose together against the cinderblock wall.  The first few, for which they had just stood next to each other, where probably no good, but Robbie thought the sillier ones and the back-to-back ones may come out okay.  He hadn’t been forcing a smile in those, and Marissa had cooed over one of them for a second.

Since Spencer was apparently planning to go jogging while he had free time, he waved and headed out almost immediately after they finished the pictures.  Robbie rolled his eyes as the other man took off towards the frost-crusted fields.

“If he expects me to wash that because he wants to work out in it,” he mumbled on the way to his classroom, “He’s got another think coming.”

Marissa giggled, and wished Robbie yet more luck as she headed back to the music room.

The morning went about as well as Robbie imagined it would. He was prepared for distracted kids.  He was prepared to only get three hours worth of teaching into the four he had before lunch.  He knew that most if not all of his students would show up in their costumes rather than wait to change until lunch-time, that there would probably be more discussion of costumes than of the new spelling and vocab words, and had a set of Halloween-themed word problems.

He was not quite prepared for Trixie to show up as a black widow spider, complete with six extra homemade legs that stretched out into space around her.  It was, admittedly, quite impressive. She’d build them with her dad, and was very proud of the whole costume.  This meant, of course, that Trixie was walking around the room and sometimes out into the hallway, showing off her legs to whoever would look, and leaving a good bit of probably accidental destruction in her wake.  When Robbie finally convinced her to sit down, she fit, barely, behind her desk, but her left legs kept hitting Ryan, who sat next to her, in the shoulder or the face.

Robbie couldn’t quite find it in him to regret encouraging her parents, but he was close to it.

Pixel wasn’t any better.  His robot suit was made of crudely painted cardboard boxes, mostly, but he’d gotten ahold of a circuitry kit or two, or five, and had rigged up panels and lights all over the place, controlled by switches that he’d cleverly hidden in the nooks and crannies of the costume.  He too caused a fuss with everyone who saw him, but he also wanted to tell everyone who would listen about all the electrical work that had gone into it, and how cool the whole thing was.

Sebastian had to be convinced to take his sunglasses off for class, because despite the fact that they were part of his secret agent suit, he clearly couldn't read his worksheets with them on.  He also had to be convinced to stop quoting movies, because it was distracting, and Robbie was more than a little unnerved by an eight-year-old who seemed to know more Bond and Mission Impossible films than he did.

Stephanie had obviously assembled her Wonder Woman costume as well, though it lacked some of the finesse of the others.  She was apparently very proud of the tutu-skirt, with its star-shaped buttons, and showed a slightly uncomfortable Pixel all the spots on her fingers where she had poked herself with her needle in the process of sewing them.  Her boots were a pair of rain-boots painted bright red, and the W motif across her chest was a little off-center.

“Dad’s not so good with Mom’s sewing machine, but we always made our costumes,” she told Robbie, just five minutes before the bell.  “It’s no fun to just buy them. We figured it out though, and I think she’d be proud.  This is the first time I really did any of the work on my costume.”

Robbie had smiled, and told her, “Of course she would be.  You did a great job.”

He had to compliment everyone on their costumes, of course. It was part of his job. He probably would have anyway, since they actually were pretty impressive, and he got to see his students’ faces light up as soon as he mentioned how creative they’d been, or pretended he didn’t recognize them.  Trying to make everyone focus on their schoolwork was his least favorite part of the day too.

They got through it, but it was a near thing.  Robbie had to resort to giving out candy corn to students who answered questions, just to keep language arts going. At lunchtime, Robbie walked his class to the cafeteria, feeling only relief that he would be able to shoo them out of the classroom for a while.

At 12:30, the school started trick-or-treating. The students were free to walk through the school, as long as they didn’t leave the building, and the teachers gave out treats from their doorways, and quietly competed with each other over who managed the best candy.  It was only for bragging rights, but given it was the only contest Robbie ever had a chance at winning, he usually went all out.

This year, he’d baked cookies, in three different varieties.

His first visitors were, predictably, the other third graders, then his own students before they left the third grade wing.  After that, there were no clear waves, but by 12:44 Ziggy Meanswell was running up to his door, Superman cape fluttering behind him.

“Mr. Rotten!” he called, before tripping and catching himself around Robbie’s knees. “Does Sportacus know anything about Halloween?”

Robbie helped pick the boy up, and shrugged. “I’m not sure, Ziggy.  Why do you ask?”

“He’s giving out carrots,” Ziggy said.  He then held up a whole carrot, leafy bits and all, with a puzzled look.  Robbie tried his best to look aghast, and not laugh out loud. “He said it was sportscandy, but I’m not sure vegetables really count as a treat.”

By then, a few of Ziggy’s friends had caught up, and Robbie took a minute to hand them all the cookie of their choice.  Once they were satisfied, he turned back to the young Meanswell. “You’re absolutely right, Ziggy.  Carrots are unacceptable, and I won’t stand for it.”

“So… what do we do?”

Robbie took a moment to think.  “The traditional response would be to play a trick on him,” he muttered, mentally taking inventory. Then an idea popped into the back of his brain, and before he could overthink it, he squatted back down to Ziggy’s level, and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.”

Within five minutes, he’d scrawled a small note for the students, and taped it to his door, and gathered his supplies.  His cookies sat in the seat of one of his classroom’s extra desks, one with the chair attached, alongside another hastily made sign.  Robbie nodded once, then started pushing the desk down the hallway, drawing a small crowd of onlookers.

Robbie set up the desk and the sign in the hallway just outside the gym, where he could hear Spencer greeting kids and exclaiming over their costumes.  He folded himself into the slightly-too-small desk chair, cookie platters and candy bag both within easy reach, and rubbed his hands together.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“Mr. Rotten?” Mary-Anne asked.  She was headed into the gym with a few of her friends from Mrs. Anderson’s class, and hadn’t been part of the gaggle that watched him push the desk. “What are you doing all the way over here?”

Robbie merely smiled pleasantly and said, “Mary-Anne, I know you can read. It seems pretty clear to me.”

She squinted at the block letters of his sign. “‘Will trade candy for carrots’?”

“Very good.”  Robbie looked around at the other nearby students, especially the ones approaching him from the gym, looking dubiously at their new carrots.  “I’m here to give students candy in exchange for their carrots, should anyone be interested.”

A few second graders approached almost instantly, and a pair of fifth graders watched over their heads as Robbie collected their carrots and gave out candy and a cookie.  “What kind of candy?” one of them asked.

“What are you looking for?” Robbie countered with a smirk.

He did good business for an hour or so.  Word must have gone around, because Naomi popped up at one point to take his picture as he haggled with a particularly stubborn fourth grader, and two of the first grade teachers came by, apparently just to gawk.

No one told Spencer, though, until Stephanie walked by his desk with a disapproving frown on her face.  She had carrot leaf sticking out of her bag, so she’d clearly already been to the gym, and Spencer appeared in the hall only a few minutes later.

Spencer, as it turned out, was unexpectedly stealthy, even in a flashy blue superhero get-up, and despite being twice the size of everyone else in the hallway.  Before Robbie was aware of him at all, Spencer was tapping him on the shoulder from behind, and Robbie nearly upset his whole setup as he startled violently within the confines of the desk.

When Robbie turned around, Spencer’s face was arranged into an accusatory glare, and there was a long minute of silence.  Robbie let himself shrink away from the other man, as much as the desk would let him.  He’d never seen Spencer angry before, and it looked wrong on his face.

“Robbie, what are you doing?” Spencer eventually asked.

Going too far, apparently, Robbie thought.  I’m making a fool out of myself, and giving the kids extra sugar they most certainly don’t need.  Bothering you.  Making a general nuisance of myself, and sabotaging your push towards healthier habits.

He managed to stutter out, “Tricking you?”

“Oh?” Spencer blinked and took a step back, crossing his arms as his expression shifted from angry to unimpressed. “Any why…were you doing that?”

Robbie shrugged. “One of the students said you weren’t giving out real treats.  The concept of trick-or-treating isn’t that complicated, is it?”

For a minute, Spencer twisted his mouth into that same ‘I’m thinking’ frown, then somehow seemed to decide that Robbie had given a valid answer.  Robbie disagreed, if he was honest, but wasn’t about to question it.

“What are you going to do with all the carrots?” Spencer asked him.

Robbie had not actually thought about that yet, and so he sat there, as Spencer’s eyebrows climbed higher up his forehead, trying to think of anything clever to do with carrots that wouldn’t just be eating them.  “I’m trying out new cakes,” he finally said.

Spencer smirked at that. “Really?”

“Yes.”  Robbie stared back at Spencer, who didn’t seem inclined to leave him alone anytime soon, and then sighed and turned to their audience.  “Fine.  Anyone who wants their carrot back can have it.  You don’t even have to give the candy back. Especially if you’ve already eaten it.”

There was a small rush, as a number of kids came up to the desk to take a carrot.  A second wave approached when Spencer gave them the Disappointed Look, and a few even apologized to him. Robbie only grumbled a little bit.

“You know, the cookies are probably enough,” Spencer said as the children dispersed.  “You probably shouldn’t be giving out more candy.”

Robbie just looked up over his shoulder, eyebrow raised, and replied, “It’s Halloween, Sportadork.  I respect your right to give out carrots, if that’s what you want to do, but today is the candy holiday, and I will give out all the candy that I want.”  

A slightly awkward silence followed that declaration, until they both heard someone in the hallway say, “You tell him, Mr. Rotten.”

Spencer sighed, and started back towards the gym, when a thought occurred to Robbie.  “Wait, Spencer, come back here a second,” he called, and waved when the other man turned around.  “The, uh, the almond cookies are sugar free, if you want one.”

“Really?”

Robbie shrugged, but lifted the basket of almond cookies in his direction as he walked back over.  “I didn't want to leave anyone out, and you’re not the only one here who’s avoiding it.”

“Ah.” Spencer smiled a little and took a cookie, looking over the rest of Robbie’s setup. “And I suppose the chocolate chip cookies are gluten free?”

“Of course, and egg free,” Robbie said, nodding along.  “And kept the peanut butter ones completely separate from the others, so there’s been no cross-contamination.  I even baked them on different days, just to be safe.”

Spencer nearly choked on the bit of cookie he’d take, and Robbie was treated to a lovely shower of crumbs from his direction.  “You’re serious,” he said, once he had control over his airways again.  “You really went to all that trouble…”

“I told you, I don’t want to leave anyone out.”

At this, Spencer clapped Robbie on the shoulder, a little too hard as per usual, and declared, “You are amazing, Robbie Rotten.”  Then he walked off, after not-so-stealthily taking another cookie out of the basket.  Robbie decided to count that as a compliment on his baking.

Around 2:15, Bessie’s voice crackled over the intercom, telling everyone to “Return to your classrooms so we can start the parade.”

The Halloween Parade was essentially just an excuse to get the sugar-high students to walk off some of their energy, and snaked through a few blocked off streets near the school before turning back just in time for the end of the day.  People living or working nearby played along, and stood along the route cheering and sometimes giving out yet more candy. The hour of walking on pavement usually meant back pain for Robbie, but it was still better than trying to teach.

This year’s parade, of course, featured a Sportacus flipping about through the throng of students, giving out high fives and commenting on costumes.  Robbie could tell where he was at all times, just by which part of the parade group was yelling the loudest. By the time he reached Robbie’s class, he was sweating and clearly tired, but managed to walk almost a block on his hands, and turn a few flips to the oohs of the children and the spectators.

Robbie mouthed “Show-off,” at him the one time their eyes met, and received a wink and a smirk for his trouble.

When the class returned to the classroom, Robbie collapsed into his big orange reading chair to supervise as the kids packed up their things and went to meet their busses or their parents.  He watched Eric look around in surprise as he found the bag of extra carrots Robbie had left on his chair, then sneak them into his backpack.  He watched Trixie struggle to fit her spider legs into the closet so she could retrieve the lunchbox she had left behind on Friday.  He watched Pixel try to hug Stephanie good-bye while wearing a cardboard box, and watched Sebastian pulling at his bow-tie.

Halloween was never boring, Robbie thought as he reached for a chocolate chip cookie.

Ziggy had apparently met up with Spencer in the hall while they were both on their way to Robbie’s classroom,  because they walked in hand in hand.  Robbie heard them before he saw them; Ziggy was asking Spencer how to be a better super hero.

“I don’t know, Ziggy,” Spencer said, as they made their way over to the carpet, where Stephanie was sorting her candy.  “I’m just a slightly-above-average hero, remember?  I’m pretty sure that Superman knows a lot more about it than me.”

Spencer nodded at Ziggy, but the boy just snorted and shook his head.  “I’m not really Superman.  I’m too little to save anyone.”  He grabbed a pillow, and flopped down onto it, frowning deeply.  Spencer looked over at Robbie, who just shrugged.

“Ziggy, no one expects you to save people from burning buildings, or anything,” Stephanie told her brother, without looking away from her candy. “Even Sportacus doesn’t do stuff like that.” Ziggy just huffed, and looked away from her.

Spencer took this as an opportunity to sit down in front of the boy, and explain.  “She’s right, Ziggy.  I can’t do all the things Superman can do, but I can still help people.  I’m sure you and Stephanie have been helping each other out a lot, right?  And you help your friends when they need it?”

“That’s not anything special, though.”

“Really?” Spencer shook his head. “I’m pretty sure that that’s all there really is to being a superhero.  You do whatever you can to help people who need you.  Right, Robbie?”

Robbie jumped a little when he heard his own name.  “Uh, sure. Whatever you say, Sportaflop.”

“Mr. Rotten!” Stephanie groaned.

“What?” Robbie asked, as she gave him her version of the Disappointed Look. “I don’t know. I’m the villain, here.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and went about her candy sorting, but Ziggy looked up at Robbie with a funny kind of confusion on his face.  He tilted his head to the side for a minute, then leaned over to whisper something in Spencer’s ear.

Whatever it was must have been pretty funny, because Spencer chuckled a little, and shot a knowing look up at Robbie before nodding, and whispering something back.  Ziggy giggled, and they continued a hushed conversation.  Spencer winked again.  It was quite worrying.

“Secrets, secrets, are no fun,” Stephanie sang to them, until Ziggy crawled over to whisper to her for a few seconds as well.  “Oh,” she said, with a quick glance at Robbie. “Well, duh.”

Okay, so whatever they were talking about, it definitely had something to do with Robbie, but they obviously didn't want to clue him in.  That was fine.  Robbie didn’t care. They could say whatever they wanted.

It was just kinda rude to whisper about him, right in front of his face.

Eventually, Stephanie started helping Ziggy to organize his candy, and they swapped some of the things that one liked and the other didn’t. Stephanie ended up with all the peanut butter cups, and had to hand over all her lollipops.  That sort of thing.

Once Dr. Meanswell had picked them up, Robbie asked Spencer, who was still lying on the floor, “So what was all that whispering about?”

“Hmm?” Spencer sat up, and bit his lip for a second.  “Nothing, really.  I just might have a little competition for Ziggy’s favorite hero. That’s all.”

Robbie just shrugged. “I see. Well, Superman’s a tough act to follow.”

“That’s not—” Spencer started to say.  Robbie cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“You’ll get over it.  Come on. I want to get home before dark."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soooo sorry this took a whole month. My mistress' name is Persona 5.
> 
> I may have another, more cannon-based fic in my brain, so maybe keep an eye out for that, if you're interested.


	8. Grey Skies (130 days left)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a bit of a lull at the beginning of November, and Robbie gets a bit stuck in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who is upset by this, there are a few slightly oblique instances of ideation in this chapter. Nothing explicit, but the character does not really deal with them. Just a head's up.

November was always a miserable month. The leaves were gone, leaving bare sticks for trees, temperatures plummeted, and the whole world turned grey, under a grey sky. The whole month felt like the last few painful breaths before everything died. Robbie always assumed that that was why he’d been born in November. On a Wednesday, no less.  Literally every star in the sky and every card ever made pointed to him being miserable.

The day after Halloween was surprisingly uneventful, and Robbie found himself almost disappointed that there had been no sugar highs or obvious too-late nights. But, he supposed, that was just what made November so miserable. It was just so…blah.

And cold.

The only vaguely interesting thing that happened on November 1 was that Sportacus showed up for reading time, and  after amusing the children by trying to fit his over-muscled frame into one of the smaller kiddie chairs, he revealed that he actually wanted to talk about something.

Robbie had, technically, started the conversation. Spencer had strolled in and Robbie had said, <<It’s Tuesday, Sportaloon.  The Meanswells aren’t staying today.>>

<<Oh, I’m not here for them,>> Spencer replied easily, as the kids chittered amongst themselves. <<I want to run something by you. I also want to hear more about the penguins.>>

Robbie snorted, and barely managed not to roll his eyes as he settled back into the orange chair and pulled out the book.

His Icelandic had improved dramatically over the past few weeks, as he started using it more. Spencer clearly enjoyed having a chance to use his native language, and the kids, for whatever reason, thought their ‘Secret Code’ was the coolest thing.  They had taken to asking Robbie what the conversations were about, afterwards, and Robbie got a quiet chuckle out of inventing ridiculous topics to cover for his and Spencer’s pretty mundane dialogue.

<<So, what was it you needed?>> Robbie asked Spencer, as the kids made a break for the closet to collect their bags and things.  Both adults followed, and Robbie was conscripted into retrieving various items from the higher shelves almost immediately.

Spencer started helping as well, apparently without even the thought that he didn’t really have to. <<Robbie, I’ve been talking to Principal Meanswell,>> he started to say, before he was pulled away to help with a stuck zipper.  After that, Spencer was chasing down gloves and hats, and Robbie was chasing down Ben C, who wanted to walk off with his backpack almost completely unzipped.

Fifteen minutes later, the kids were all gone, Robbie had flopped back into the orange chair, and Spencer was sitting backwards on a folding chair, chin resting on his folded arms.  “So, what were you saying?” Robbie asked again.

“I, uh, I want to start some kind of organized after-school program,” Spencer said. “I’ve been talking to Meanswell about it, and he likes the idea.”  
Robbie stared at the ceiling, and hummed absently in response as he contemplated just leaving the pencils up there this time “Mhmm… Of course he does.  It’s a good idea.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Why?” Robbie asked. Spencer looked startled by the question, and opened his mouth, but closed it again, allowing Robbie to try to fumble an explanation. “I mean, it’s not like you were going to give it up if I didn’t.”

Spencer paused for a moment. “Well, no,” he said,  “But I was hoping you would…”

“Approve?” Robbie barked an extremely fake laugh. “Why would you care what I think?”

There was the rush of a full breath being let out, and Spencer hesitated for another second before blurting out, “He just wants me to get a few other people on board before we actually do it,” all at once. Then, after another pause, “So, will you?”

Robbie looked down from the ceiling tiles he’d been staring at, one eyebrow raised, to see Spencer’s hopeful baby blues, and tried to at least pretend he wouldn’t do absolutely anything to get the man to stop looking at him like that. “Will I what?”

“Will you help me?”

Oh, Robbie was such a sucker.  It was embarrassing.  “What would I be doing, exactly?”

Robbie could hear Spencer’s grin in his voice. “Oh, that’s the beauty of it,” he explained.  “You’d basically just be doing what you already do with Stephanie and Ziggy, but with more kids.  They can’t be the only ones who could use a place to go after school.  We could have a few different activities to choose from, and only for an hour or two.  You help with homework, or do something relaxing, and I run something more active, for the ones that need to burn off extra energy.”

Well, anyone could do that. “Why ask me?”

“Because you’re the best friend I have here, and I know you have time in the afternoons,” Spencer explained, and he must have somehow sensed that he’d already won, because he grinned widely. “It would be good for you.  And you could help out with more than Stephanie and Ziggy.”

Robbie sunk back into the chair again, and stared resolutely at the ceiling. “Spencer, there are so many other people here who would be better at this.”

“Really?”

“And I can’t do Wednesdays.” At least this was an actual problem. “You know, with chorus. I’m committed to that for the rest of the year, and Marissa will fight you if you try to steal me away.”

Spencer just shrugged in the most infuriating way, in the very corner of Robbie’s vision, and told him, “We’ll figure something out.”

“At least get someone who can keep up with you.”

“I don’t need someone who can keep up with me.” Robbie rolled his eyes, but Spencer kept going. “I need someone who is good at the things I’m bad at, so we can work together.  Cover each other’s weak spots.”

Robbie scoffed. “You need someone to make sure you don’t pass out in front of the kids.”

“That too, I guess.”  Spencer did, at least, nod to acknowledge the point. “All the more reason to have you around. Will you do it?”

“Oh, stop it with the eyes!” Robbie blew out an exasperated breath, and pulled himself up out of the chair. “I’ll think about it.  You think about who else you can ask.”

Spencer just shook his head and watched as Robbie went to collect his things from his desk. “You would be perfect, Robbie.”

“Whatever. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

It rained heavily through Wednesday and Thursday, and Robbie pulled out his down comforter and winter jackets from the closet. The kids arrived in the mornings, dripping and shivering, to a building still chilly from the night without heat. Spencer made hot tea for himself in the orange thermos, along with Robbie’s coffee. 

Robbie woke up slowly on Friday morning, remembering nothing from his dream but the feeling of warm, strong arms around him, and the press of lips against his forehead.  It had been lovely, safe, and warm. Someone had loved him.

He blinked a few times, then rolled over and found only empty space.

It had been hard to get out of bed after that. He’d curled back up in his blankets, trying to escape the cold air that seemed to rush in all around him, until his second alarm blared, and even then he’d been sorely tempted to press the snooze button again and just wallow.  Going back to sleep was useless—the dream was well and truly gone now—but he just wanted that feeling back.

Then a monstrous little voice in the back of his mind said, “What if you didn’t have to wake up?” and Robbie knew it was time.  If he let himself stay in his head any longer, he’d go down the bad paths, and while nothing ever came of it, he wasn’t taking the chance.  

Robbie pulled himself out of bed, and showered quickly so he’d be out of the bathroom quickly, and not have to look at the medicine cabinet. He then took the time to make proper hot chocolate instead of coffee.  In a pot. On the stove. None of the instant powder stuff that usually sustained him. The whole process was more involved than just starting the coffee machine, and Spencer would have something for him as his caffeine fix. Today was going to be all about distractions.

Luckily, he worked with children, so once he got to work there would be no shortage of things to do.

He managed to keep himself busy until he had to go, and as long as there was something to focus on, the intrusive thoughts were just that—intrusive, and easily batted away to be dealt with another time. Robbie left at exactly 6:25, and was idling outside Spencer’s apartment two minutes later.

Spencer appeared a moment later, blue backpack over his left shoulder and thermoses in both hands, grinning. “Robbie!” he called, “Good morning!”

“Is it, though?” Robbie muttered, but he leaned over to open the passenger door.

Of course it was a good morning for Spencer.  His eyes were all sparkly and blue, he’d probably had a great run this morning, got to pet someone’s puppy in the park, and found an extra stash of kale for his egg-white omelet.  

“Robbie?”  

Spencer had settled into the passenger seat, and was holding out the purple thermos to him, confused squint in his eyes. “It seemed like a mocha kind of day,” he said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Robbie snatched the thermos to prove it, and took a large sip of too hot coffee. It burned on the way down, and didn’t taste like anything except hot.  
Spencer’s right eyebrow shot up. “Oh, really? You don’t look fine.”

Since, “I’m not. I thought about driving into the ditch on the way here just to see who would give a damn. Don’t worry, I was pretty sure you would care,” would most likely get him a one way escort to a shrink, if not a hospital or something, Robbie just rolled his eyes and pulled out of the parking area onto the road. “My brain is chasing its own stem,” he said, when Spencer didn't take the hint.  “Just get me thinking about something else.”

“Okay,” Spencer said, as he reached over to turn the radio on, then lower the volume so the car ads would be nothing more than white noise in the background.  “But if you want to talk about whatever’s bothering you…”

Rolling his eyes this much while driving was probably not all that safe, Robbie reflected. “I had a weird dream, alright? Now my brain won’t shut up.”  
Spencer lit up a little as Robbie said this, and exclaimed, “But that means you actually slept! That’s good news!”

“I guess so,” Robbie grumbled. “Leave it to you to put a positive spin on everything.”

There was a stretch of silence after that, during which Spencer nursed his tea and Robbie ran his tongue over the burned spot on the roof of his mouth, wondering how long it would hurt for.  The radio hosts came back on after the ads ended, and chattered on about something Robbie didn’t want to pay attention to.

“So, did you think anymore about…”

“Yeah,” Robbie said, even though he hadn’t. He’d been about to say yes the other day, honestly, and had held off mostly on the hope that Spencer would find someone else and let him off the hook.  Should’ve known that wouldn’t happen. “I suppose I can give it a go, if you find someone to cover Wednesdays for me. But can we hash out details this afternoon?”

Spencer nodded, then lunged for the volume dial.  “Sorry,” he said as a guitar riff and a whine suddenly blasted from the speakers, “I really like this song…”

“It’s fine,” Robbie said, shaking his head as Spencer picked up the drumbeat agains the dash, and danced in the seat as much as his seatbelt would allow. It wasn’t until the other man started singing along as well, too fast and too heavily accented for Robbie to really make out the words, that Robbie complained.  
Spencer had laughed, and said, “But it’s just for fun, Robbie.”

“Yep. All fun and games until my ears start bleeding,” Robbie sighed.  Spencer just swatted at Robbie’s shoulder, and continued his completely tone-deaf singing.  There was something about the ice and snow and midnight something in there, alongside the wordless yelling.  Robbie tried to tune it out and focus on the road.

The rest of the drive was filled with too loud music, and Spencer trying to goad Robbie into singing along to songs he didn’t know.  Robbie had, for a second or two, been tempted to start up one of his CDs of show tunes, just to make the point that Spencer apparently couldn’t sing for anything, but if he was being honest, it was kind of more fun to just watch the other man jamming out.  He could belt when he was alone.

As they were pulling into the school parking lot, Spencer turned the music down again, he cleared his throat as soon as Robbie pulled into his usual spot. “So…” he started.

“So…?”

“Marissa wanted me to ask you about Thanksgiving,” Spencer said, looking apologetic even as he spoke. “I promised her I would.”

Robbie let his face fall into his hands.  “Of course she did.  I was wondering when she’d get around to it.”

“So…”

There was not much to do but sigh, and roll his eyes. “Tell her I’ve already made plans, if she asks. I’ll chew her out about using you for this next time I see her.”

“She said you’d probably say no.” Spencer shrugged, and took another sip of his tea.  “She’s invited me over, too. It might not be so bad.”

“No. It might even be fun.” Robbie sighed. “I don’t really do Thanksgiving, though.  I’ll sleep in, eat turkey sandwiches, and watch movies. Call my cousin. Whatever.”

“Well, if you want any company, you could always call me.” Robbie looked over to see Spencer staunchly avoiding his gaze, and watched him hide behind his tea as he explained.  “My family never really did much for Thanksgiving either, and with Maggi over in Europe for however long…”

Robbie let him trail off, then nodded. “Sounds good,” he said, chuckling a little when Spencer turned to him, wide-eyed. “Don’t look so surprised. We’ve got a whole list of movies to go through, after all, and being alone on holidays is pretty pathetic.”

“True.” They sat in silence for another few seconds, as Robbie pulled his gloves on and Spencer drained the last of his tea. “So, is Friends-giving a real thing, or is she making that up? Because it kind of sounds made up.”

Robbie snorted. “I don’t know. But I’m not going to be the one to ask.” A glance at his watch made him jump, and add, “Okay, time to go.”

They braced themselves, then got out of the car into the cold. Both men ran towards the building, Spencer at an easy jog and Robbie flailing and breathing hard, but keeping up. They parted ways in the hall, as usual, and Robbie headed to his classroom and curled up in the orange chair on autopilot.  Mary-Anne and Pixel nearly found him sitting there when they arrived on the early bus, half- asleep and cradling his coffee in his hands. He stirred as soon as the door opened, though, and jumped up as soon as they walked in.

Once there were students, there were things to do, and Robbie kept himself easily occupied through the rest of the day. Robbie had never been so thankful for division facts, or for the many rules of comma usage. By midday, Robbie had no desire to eat, so he didn’t. He spent his lunch break grading spelling quizzes, even though he didn’t need them done until Monday, and started puzzling out the December seating chart.

“Mr. Rotten, are you getting sick?” Stephanie asked him as the rest of the students filed out at the end of the day. “You seem kinda different today.”

“I’m fine,” Robbie told her easily.  She was much easier to lie to than Spencer.  “I just didn’t sleep very well.  I had a weird dream.”

At this, the girl perked up. “Really?  What was it about?”

Robbie wasn’t about to tell Stephanie the real, pathetic truth, but the opportunity to entertain was too easy not to take. Ziggy wandered in just as Robbie was starting to tell Stephanie an epic saga about himself on a submarine, exploring the ocean and finding strange monsters, so the first part of the story had to be repeated for him. 

He was just getting to a good part, too, when Ziggy looked out the window, and cried, “Mr. Rotten, look! It’s snowing!”

And so it was. In the grey afternoon, there were white flakes drifting silently through the air, melting as soon as they landed. “Well, the weatherman didn’t say anything about that…” Robbie muttered to himself as Stephanie and Ziggy raced to the window.

“Can we go out and see?” Stephanie turned around to ask, eyes shining with awe and wide with hope.  “It’s so pretty out.”

Robbie sighed, and reached for his coat. “Bundle up, kids.  Let’s go catch some snow-flakes.”

They ended up out at the playground, standing around with their heads tilted back and their mouths wide open.  Ziggy grew impatient with that method pretty quickly, and started running after the flakes instead of just waiting for them, and Stephanie followed suit.  It became a game of chase, and Ziggy ran into Robbie twice before they could be convinced to stop.

Robbie watched them with a smile, and caught a few stray snowflakes on his own tongue.

Half an hour later, they returned to the classroom to warm up before Dr. Meanswell arrived to pick them up, and they found Spencer sitting in the orange chair, reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  He jumped up as soon as the kids called his name, and smiled sheepishly in Robbie’s direction.

“I was wondering where you three had gone!” Spencer exclaimed.  “Where were you?”

Ziggy bounded over, and shook his head hard enough to shake a few drops of melted snow into the air.  “We went outside.  It’s snowing!”

“It sure is,” Robbie confirmed when Spencer looked to him.  <<Dr. Meanswell should be here in a few minutes. Why are you reading the chocolate book?>>

<<I missed a lot of it, when you read it to the class.>> Spencer shrugged, and then followed Stephanie to the closet so she could show him her most recent art project. The class had been dabbling in pottery during their art blocks for the past few weeks, and Stephanie was very proud of the elephant teapot she’d constructed. Spencer praised it highly, as did Dr. Meanswell when he arrived, and the both of them helped her wrap it back up in newspaper so she could bring it home.

Once they were alone again, Spencer raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Can we work out those details now?”

“Mmm…” Robbie considered it, but his stomach had started complaining in the last twenty minutes. “How about over soup and grilled cheese at my place?”  
Spencer nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It hasn't been a whole month. It's been 28 days. I totally didn't lie to you last chapter.
> 
> Sorry this one is so short, and so filler-y. It was originally going to be only the first half of this chapter, but it kinda expanded on me, and Robbie was just awful to write in this chapter. There was going to be a lot more of the kids, and more actually doing stuff. Robbie was going to actually talk to people who are not Spencer. But alas... it will have to wait for next time.
> 
> I will make it up to you in the next few chapters, I hope. It may be about start precipitating the awful wintry mix of freezing rain/snow/sleet once they get to Robbie's, so Spencer may be crashing on the piano bench. Also, holidays are coming, and I have all sorts of plans.


	9. Family Matters (122 Days Left)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Robbie meets the families. Also, there's a few snow days. And Thanksgiving.

Robbie rarely sees Saturday mornings.  He usually sleeps until one in the afternoon, then obtains food by the easiest means possible and lounges around his apartment until he’s ready to sleep again.  So he thought it was completely understandable for him to be upset when he was forced into groggy awareness at 7:30 the next morning by the kettle whistling.

He stormed into the kitchen, pajamas askew and scowl firmly in place, to see Spencer in his kitchen. The other man was already dressed, his hair still damp from a shower, and he was making tea in one of Robbie’s favorite mugs and rooting around the refrigerator like he thinks he owns the place.

“Good morning, Robbie!” he said, tossing a smile over his shoulder.

Right. Spencer was there. He stayed over.

His mustache was freshly waxed, so he must have used Robbie’s hair stuff. Without asking. Robbie couldn’t quite make himself call that typical, because Spencer was usually pretty good about asking, but, well…

Robbie pulled himself together enough to scoff. “Good morning to be sleeping, you mean,” he grumbled. “This is the last time I let you crash on my couch.”

“Sorry,” Spencer said, shrugging and not looking particularly sorry.  “I was actually going to head home soon. The snow stopped, and it’s pretty much gone now.  I’ll just walk back, you don’t need to drive me.”

“Good. I’m going back to bed.” Robbie shot another glare towards Spencer before stalking back towards his room.

Once alone again, Robbie sat back down on the side of his bed, and listened to the other man puttering around his home. It was quieter than before, he noted almost spitefully.  At least he was feeling bad about the intrusion. Or for helping himself to Robbie’s fridge. Or assuming that Robbie was going to drive him anywhere at 7:30. Or anything else he might have done, that Robbie hadn’t noticed.  

Robbie shook his head, and checked to make sure his phone was still happily powered off.  Any more rude awakenings and he might just scream, or break something.

By 11:15, when he woke up for real, there was no sign or sound of Spencer anywhere around the apartment. A few things had moved about in the kitchen, and some of Robbie’s folders had moved from the piano bench to the kitchen counter, but there were no obvious lingering evidence that anyone had been there.

Other than the sticky notes. There were sticky notes everywhere.

‘Sorry for assuming, especially after you fed me last night. I only took an apple this morning, but if you want me to replace it, I can,’ read the note on the refrigerator.

‘You didn’t have to buy tea just for me. Thank you,’ was affixed to the kettle.

‘I borrowed your shampoo and soap. Sorry. I thought you’d be more upset if I was sweaty and gross’ was stuck to the mirror in the bathroom, and there was another apology attached to the styling gel and now open spare toothbrush.

It didn’t stop there, either. There was a note on the dishwasher, that Spencer had rinsed off the dishes from last night and his from this morning, and loaded them into the washer, but that it hadn’t seemed full enough to run.  There was one on the door, about borrowing Robbie’s ice scraper to clean the frozen rain and frost off his car.  There was an apology for leaving the door unlocked while Robbie was sleeping, even though there was no way Spencer could have locked it.

There was a sticky note left with his folders about the kids too.  ‘I know you’re all set for conferences next week,’ the sticky note read, ‘but since the parents don’t meet with me unless they really want to, I left a few notes of my own.  Feel free to not use them, if you don’t want them. I just wanted to thank you for all your ideas and help.’

Robbie had gotten up ready to still be angry.  He’d fully intended to sulk and stew in his frustration until Monday, and possibly text Spencer and tell him to drive separately. But as he gathered up all twenty-five sticky notes from around his apartment, he found himself smiling, and relaxing a little.

‘you owe me a new pad of these you menace’ he texted to Spencer, along with a picture of all the notes on the refrigerator.

After breaking into a package of chocolate chip muffins to tide him over until he was ready to think about food, Robbie sat down to at the piano, and started playing whatever came under his fingers.  It was a rag, the name of which he couldn’t remember, but that he’d been playing for so long that he didn’t need the sheet music anymore.

That rag turned into a canzona, which turned into experimenting with a few pop songs, and suddenly he was playing around with a jazz piano rendition of Bon Jovi from the car ride yesterday, and humming along where he didn’t know the lyrics.  It wouldn't quite settle in though, and after a while, he just closed the cover over the keys.

He turned around to find four new texts on his phone, all from Spencer.

‘sorry. was it too much’  
‘i didn’t mean to be a bother’  
‘you were so upset tho.’  
‘robbie?’

Normally, Robbie would have just texted back and forth. It was easier, after all, and he could keep doing other things. But for whatever reason, when he pulled up a reply box, absolutely nothing seemed right to send. Robbie stared at the empty text box and the blinking curser, elbows resting on the keyboard cover, for a full minute or so before he gave up and hit the little phone icon instead.

“Robbie?” Spencer answered, accent thicker than usual and voice pitched up. “What’s wrong?”

Robbie snorted, and shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong. I just… I don’t know.  I’m not mad, and I wanted you to know that. I was grumpy with you this morning, and I shouldn’t have been.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. So, I’m sorry, I guess.  You left me something like twenty apologies, all told, any you really didn’t do that much wrong. I’m just weird about people touching my stuff.” Robbie sighed, and cast about for anything else to say. “It was barely getting light when you woke me up. Do you run in the dark?”

“In the winter, yeah.  The sun doesn't come up until around 7:30 these days, so…” Spencer trailed off, and Robbie could all but hear the shrug from the other end of the line. “It gets better once the clocks change; it’ll be getting light by the time I get home for a while.”

“You’re insane. Did you know that?” Robbie asked, and rolled his eyes when Spencer just chuckled over the phone. “That’s this weekend, right? The time change?”

They kept talking for what felt like a while, but even so, when Robbie hung up he was surprised to see that an hour and a half had passed.  It was rapidly approaching three in the afternoon, and he’d done absolutely nothing.

It took a feat of self-discipline, but Robbie put together an early dinner of chicken and rice to go in the oven, then sat down with his notes from the past few months.  They would need to be condensed into a manageable format, and not be a folder full of sticky notes, so he could review before each conference.  Robbie had already put all the sticky notes for September and October into monthly reports, for simplicity’s sake, but November was still a mess of the original, hastily scrawled post-its.

He was separating out the more important sticky notes from the more mundane incidents for Sam Anderson, the first in the pile, when he found the notebook page on top of his typed up monthly write-ups. It was in Spencer’s handwriting, and just a list of bullet points.

‘She does a lot better when she doesn’t have to work directly with others. Same with group work?’ read the first bullet.  Robbie looked over his list own notes, and pulled up a blank document.  “I thought I had something on that somewhere…” Robbie muttered to himself, before spotting one of his own notes in on the September page. “Aha! Right.  Hmm…”

He typed out a quick few sentences in the new doc, and nodded.  “Alright, Sport, what else you got for me?”

Spencer’s notes were actually surprisingly helpful, as Robbie made his way through the stack of folders. The oven timer went off just as he was getting to the second folder, and he continued to work as he ate. He was about half-way through, connecting the dots on how Ben Matthews already seemed to think he was no good at academics, and was planning to just get through life on sports, when he started to feel hungry, and realized it was 10pm.

“Well, that might be it for today,” he told himself, as he headed to the freezer. “You got Trixie’s done, though, so the rest should be easy, comparatively.”

There was ice cream and TV before bed, because it was the weekend, and Robbie wasn’t quite ready to sleep just yet, and for all the neurotics that went into organizing his and Spencer’s observations, the next day was a breeze. Robbie even had time to bake.

School on Monday was a bit awkward at first, because most of the students in his class were being particularly nice to Robbie.  They were quiet, and worked more diligently than he’d ever seen them work before. They didn’t fight over being the line-leader, or run down the hall to the gym to play whatever they were playing this week. Kristen even called him Mr. Rotterdam. 

By ten, when he found the class in perfect order, lined up and ready to leave the gym, he snorted and asked Spencer, “Are they kissing up to you too, or is it just me?”

Spencer gave him a confused look, and a few of the kids had the decency to look bashful.  Trixie was not among them, however, and looked up at Robbie with perfect sincerity. “They want to make sure you tell their parents good things,” she said. “I don’t, though. If you tell my parents good things, they’ll probably call you a liar.”

Robbie nodded, even as Spencer tried to stifle a giggle.

“He could say you’re very good at causing trouble,” Sebastian chimed from further back in the line. “That’s almost a nice thing.”

“Thank you, Sebastian.  I’ll keep that in mind,” Robbie said, before turning around to see Mr. Wyre’s class approaching in the hall.  “Well, we’d better be off.  The gym is about to be occupied again, and we have fractions to do.”

Groans abounded, but the line started back towards the third grade wing.

Robbie purposely waited until they were all settled into his classroom to announce, “I do accept bribes, but you’ll have to figure out what to bribe me with.  I don’t take money.”

Stephanie scoffed from the back of the room. “That’s easy, Mr. Rotten.  Cookies and cupcakes.”

“You’re welcome to try, Stephanie,” Robbie replied easily. “I make no promises.”

The snacks started appearing not long after that. 

By the time the kids were leaving for the day, Robbie could tell exactly whose allowance rode on these conferences, one way or another, and was vastly amused.  
Stephanie and Ziggy spent their after school hour doing homework, so after cleaning up and organizing the day’s sticky notes, Robbie took the time to pull out the files for the three students whose parents he would be talking to that evening, and started reading through them again.  Dr. Meanswell appeared right on schedule, and all three left quickly and easily.

Five minutes later, there was a heavy-handed knock on Robbie’s door.

Robbie sighed as Spencer walked in with the notebook that was now, apparently, the official After School Program Planning Notebook.  “Look, I’m trying to prepare for parents. Can we maybe give it a rest for today? I don’t know, go run the volunteer idea by Meanswell.  He can get you in touch with the high school, and they’ll know better what to do with it.”

“I already did that. He’s working on it.”  Spencer sat down across from Robbie, and set down a stack of papers. “I’m actually just passing these out to everyone.  To give out at conferences.”

Robbie looked down at the stack to see the information packets the two of them had written up last week. “Ah. Good. Thanks.”

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, looking down at the folders in Robbie’s hands.

Robbie rolled his eyes. “I would think that’s pretty obvious.”

“Robbie, you know the kids.  You know what the issues are, and you know what you need to talk with the parents about.” Spencer took Ben Chambers’ folder out of his hands, and smacked him lightly on the shoulder with it. “You have been studying these all weekend. Relax.”

After scrabbling embarrassingly after the folder, Robbie eventually let Spencer win the game of keep-away, and sat back in his chair to pout. “What do you suggest, then?”

“You have until five, right?” Spencer asked,  with a hopeful smile tugging at his mouth. “Let’s go to Lazy Cakes. My treat, whatever you want. Just get out of this room for a bit.”

So, maybe taking the opportunity to buy a whole cake on Spencer’s dime, instead of just buying a slice of one, was a little unnecessary, but Robbie was feeling a lot less antsy by the time they returned to the school.

Meeting with parents was never Robbie’s favorite part of the job, mostly because he was always baffled when parents seemed to expect him not to notice things.  When Robbie mentioned to Mr. Finney that his son was always squirreling away food, talked about the school’s snack and meal system, and asked as tactfully as he could manage if there were any issues at home, the man looked at him like he’d grown another head, and asked, “Was is you who sent home that whole bag of carrots?”

On Tuesday, Mrs. Anderson nodded along to his academic concerns, then paled when he mentioned her daughter’s difficulties working with others, and that she would barely talk directly to Robbie.  After dancing around the trust issues, she admitted that there had been a boyfriend and his kids in the picture for a while, and it hadn’t ended well, and they were able to have a real discussion about how to approach her, what would help and what wouldn’t, and who she was more likely to get along with. 

The Lees were back and happy to ask for more of Robbie’s thoughts, as Trixie was apparently much more lively now that they were giving her projects to put her energy into.  They talked about the science fair, and maybe working on some basic building ideas, if the spider costume and the photos of their new tree-house additions and model dinosaurs were anything to go by. Robbie mentioned some of the math groups for fourth and fifth graders to them as well, to maybe float by Trixie, even though the thought of putting the girl in a competitive setting, even at an elementary school level, made Robbie a bit nervous. For her opponents, obviously, not for her.

Robbie had a similar talk with Pixel’s fathers, but made sure to include his worries that Pixel was spending too much time with his gadgets.  One of the men had given the other a look, so this obviously wasn’t a new issue for them, so they talked about attempted and potential interventions.

He mentioned the after school program to everyone, and passed out the information packets, and it had seemed like a number of parents were interested enough to give it a try, if only once or twice a week.  Dr. Meanswell asked if it was because of Stephanie and Ziggy.

“In part, yes,” Robbie told him. “Not because I don’t enjoy having them stay.  Honestly, we’re just thinking that you were forced to make the arrangement we have, but there are probably lots of families who would benefit from the option. And Spencer apparently just can’t get enough of the kids, so here we are.”

After the conferences, things only got crazier, as Thanksgiving break approached.  The kids were already checking out by Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, there was talk of a massive storm blowing through starting that night.  All day, Robbie was hearing whispers of wooden spoons under pillows, and inside-out pajamas.  The snow started falling around 2 that afternoon, and didn’t stop.

Robbie got the call around 5am the next morning, and blearily looked up his link in the phone tree before falling back into blissful sleep.

He texted back and forth with Spencer through the day, as the snow continued to pile up.  Spencer kept offering to come dig Robbie out, and then, after the snow finally stopped, appeared around noon on Saturday.  The plows were actually making headway at that point, and with the path cleared, Robbie was able to break out the rock salt and say he was able to leave. Technically.

He invited Spencer in for tea, made himself hot cocoa, and they commiserated about going in for inservice on Monday. Tentative plans were made to watch movies on Robbie’s TV on Thanksgiving, and Spencer wheedled Robbie into showing up to Marissa’s Friends-Giving thing, at least for a little while. 

They ended up at Spencer’s for Thanksgiving, though, after Robbie’s power mysteriously went out.  He got a call to his cell saying it was related to ice forming as the snow melted and re-froze after the storm, and downing a wire somewhere, and sighed before calling Spencer.

Spencer had answered from the parking lot outside Robbie’s door, but was more than happy to bring Robbie, his laptop, and the DVDs back to his place. They watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special while sitting on the couch with turkey sandwiches, barbecue chips for Robbie and carrots for Spencer. The angle was awkward with the laptop on the table, though, and there wasn’t really a comfortable place to put their feet, but they managed. About half-way through, Robbie started the oven, then put his pie in to bake.

Just as the timer beeped, Spencer’s phone chimed from the kitchen counter.  “Marissa wants to know where we are,” he relayed to Robbie as Robbie pulled the pie out and placed it on the cooling rack.

“She just assumes we’re together now?” Robbie asked, raising an eyebrow, but Spencer just shrugged. “Well, tell her there will be pie in about twenty minutes. I want to let this cool for a second, so I don’t burn my legs in the car, but we should probably make our appearance sooner rather than later.”

Robbie knows he should have been paying attention, but when the two of them arrived at the monstrosity that was Friends-Giving, he barely processed the whirl of people.  Someone relieved him of the pie, exclaiming that it smelled delicious. 

He was anchored by Spencer’s hand on between his shoulder blades, and everything else was just faces until Naomi appeared in front of him, and pulled him to the kitchen.

Marissa was there, carving what was left of a turkey and handing out what must have been seconds and thirds at that point.  “There you are, Robbie!” she exclaimed, grinning. “I was starting to think you were going to stay in hiding after all!”

“You recruited our friendly neighborhood Sportacus to keep me honest,” Robbie replied, accepting a hug and waving off an offer of food.  “I don’t think I can stay though.  You may be breaking the fire code or something.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t supposed to get this big,” Marissa admitted, reaching around Robbie to give Spencer a quick half-hug. “I just hate turning people away, and everyone turned up with another friend or two, and their plus-one, and their friend’s plus-one… Sorry. I know you’re not one for crowds.”

Robbie shrugged, but he was already feeling the beginnings of a headache. There were at least four other conversations going on just in the kitchen, and background noise seeping in from the rest of the house.  He tried to keep himself focused on Marissa  and Naomi and Spencer, who were discussing sides and the blessing that is break, but after only a few minutes, he was rubbing his temples and silently begging for a little more space.

<<Robbie, do you want to head out?>> came a distinct voice from beside him.  <<You don’t look so good.  Are you okay?>>

<<I’m alright,>> Robbie managed.  <<Apologize to Marissa?>>

There was a minute more of conversation, and Robbie gave the two hosts a sad and pained smile before they waved him off, and Spencer all but pushed him back to and then out the door.

<<Yeah. That’s why I don’t usually come to this sorts of thing,>> Robbie said, when Spencer gave him a look out on the sidewalk.  Surprisingly, but kindly, Spencer didn’t ask. He just bundled Robbie back into his passenger seat, cranked the music up, and drove.

Upon their return to Spencer’s, Robbie proposed starting another movie. There was some debate over where, though, because neither of them was ready for another hour and a half of awkwardly craning their necks.  After some trial and error, they found that lying on the floor with pillows was apparently the best option.

“I feel like a kid,” Robbie grumbled from the nest he was creating.  “Except I’m going to have a much harder time getting back up.”

Spencer rolled his eyes.  “You want to really be children?”

“What did you have in mind?” Robbie drawled, sarcastic, but anticipating the answer all the same.

“Pillow fort?” Robbie snickered, but Spencer elbowed him and continued, “You’re probably much better at it than my brothers and I were. It might even not fall down on us.”

There was a sort of mischief in those blue eyes that was a little bit intoxicating, apparently, because minutes later, the two were gathering couch cushions, kitchen chairs, and all the blankets they could find. Robbie was sure he'd had an objection somewhere, but he couldn't seem to find it. He was put in charge of construction, and Spencer was very good at holding multiple things in place at once. They finished in about half an hour, and it wasn't necessarily pretty, but Robbie was about 90% sure it wouldn't fall down on their heads.

Inside the fort, pressed up against Spencer’s side because pillow forts aren't really meant to fit two grown men, Robbie was a little warmer that he would have liked, but after waking up with no heat, he wasn’t about to complain. They watched animated movies, and Robbie kept up a snarky commentary under his breath that kept Spencer laughing, and Robbie entertained. They leaned against each other, Spencer headbutting Robbie in the shoulder when the jokes got too irreverent or dirty. Robbie watched Spencer's expressions of awe and delight, and the twitches of his stupid mustache, and wondered how such an excitable and naturally happy man ended up friends with someone so sullen and boring.

They didn’t emerge until Spencer looked down at his watch and yelped. “Robbie, it’s almost four! Are you hungry?”

Robbie hemmed and hawed a little, but finally, after much cajoling, admitted that he could eat. “You want to get take-out? There’s a pretty good Chinese place that I’m pretty sure is open today…”

“Nah, that’s okay. I’ll cook,” Spencer said.  He wriggled his way out of the mass of pillows and blankets, and vanished from Robbie’s rather limited field of vision. “And if you want to stay, we can make up the spare room. It’s going to be cold tonight, and if your heat isn’t back on…”

“Yeah, maybe. You better make real food though,” Robbie called after him as he crawled his way out of the fort, tangling himself in blankets along the way.  Spencer made everything look so easy.  “I will not be touching any raw vegetables or anything.”

The doorbell rang just as Spencer was starting to chop something green and leafy for whatever dinner he had planned, so Robbie went to answer it.

On the step was another blond, blue-eyed man with too many muscles and an eerily similar silly mustache, with a duffle bag over his shoulder and a slip of paper in his hand.  “Sorry, I meant to call. My phone didn’t charge at the hotel, I guess, so it died, and the connection was so tight I had to run, but I—Oh.” Both men jumped a little when the stranger looked up and met Robbie’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” the man started to say.  “I thought I wrote down the right address, but I must be mistaken.  Excuse me.”

Robbie shook his head, and held up one finger. “Spencer?” he called over his shoulder, “Do you have a stunt double?”

“What are you talking about?” was the reply, from inside, and a moment later, Spencer appeared in the entry-way, still wearing his apron.  He squinted at Robbie for a moment, smiling that indulgent little smile that he saved for Robbie and the kids, before looking past him.  “Maggi? I thought you were still in Germany.”

The strange Not-Spencer stood silently for a moment, looking back and forth between Spencer and Robbie.  “I came back for the holidays,” he said slowly. “I was hoping to crash with you until I can find a place, but if this is a bad time…”

“No! Of course not! Come in!” Spencer exclaimed, voice almost a full octave higher than usual. He grabbed Not-Spencer by the strap of his duffle and hauled him inside, slamming the door behind him. “I was just starting dinner, and you must be starving, after traveling. I’ll make up the spare room for you, and you can stay as long as you need to.”

There was a rush of activity, and Not-Spencer ended up dropping his duffle into the spare room and helping with the cooking process.  Robbie stood around awkwardly, waiting for a moment to say goodbye and leave these obviously related people to their business.

Robbie poked his head into he kitchen to hear them gabbing away in Icelandic, with knives and vegetables, and all sorts of things he didn’t want to get into the middle of, and cleared his throat.  “I think I’ll let you two catch up,” he said, when they both whipped around to look at him. “Spencer, I’ll see you Monday?”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that. Stay. Maggi, this is Robbie. I must have mentioned him to you,” Spencer explained, and from the way Not-Spencer’s eyes lit up, he had. “Robbie, this is my brother, Magnus.  The one who was off backpacking in Europe.”

Robbie just nodded, and waved. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m gonna go. Bye.”

With that, Robbie fled from the apartment, and promptly realized he had no car.  He wrapped his jacket tighter around him, and glared at the setting sun as he started his trudging way back to his own apartment. At least it wasn’t that far.

It was cold and dark, though, as the power still hadn’t come back on. Robbie contemplated food for about half a minute before deciding to just curl up under his quilt.  He could break out the cake if he got desperate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my lovelies, the problem with having five different fic ideas floating around in one brain is that none of them get done. Especially when there's also life stuff happening. That is one of the reasons why this chapter has taken so long. Another is that it ended up about 1000 words longer than the others, and still feels so un-fleshed-out to me that I am probably going to be revising and adding for another week, unless I can reign myself in. I really just wanted to get this out there, so I can start moving forward.
> 
> However, I'm happy to announce that I will soon have much more time for writing, as I am headed to my last shift of full time work for a while, and taking a month and a half sanity break before going back to grad school. I am hoping to get a good bit of the rest of this story done before I go back. So wish me luck on that.
> 
> Yes, I named Íþró Magnus. I'm sorry. It was easy. And for anyone wondering, yes, Glanni exists in this AU, and he will show up eventually. He's pushing 'fashionably late', I know, but we will get to him.


	10. Good Help Is Hard To Find (116 Remaining)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie and Sportacus asked the high school to post that they need volunteers after school starting in the new year, and sure enough, the request is answered.

By Thursday afternoon, Robbie was getting to the point where he missed Spencer, which is how he knew things were getting a little out of hand. They’d been carpooling as usual, and this morning, Spencer had even turned off the radio and talked with him. They hadn’t spent any extra time together, but that was only to be expected.

Knowing this didn’t stop Robbie from blowing out a sigh of absolutely-not-relief when Spencer walked into his classroom at 3pm and let himself fall backwards into the pile of pillows next to the orange chair. Robbie smirked, and pretended not to be paying attention, and as a greeting, asked, “Having a good day, are we?”

“I love my brother. I swear,” Spencer groaned, letting his head fall into his hands.  “Why do I want to throw him out the window so often?”

Robbie snorted, and got up to pull a packet of peanut butter crackers out of his desk, and put away his book. “Family makes everyone crazy,” he said. “That’s just how life works.” He tossed Spencer the crackers, and frowned a little when he just stuck them in his pocket.

“He’s never going to let the pillow fort go.”

At this, Robbie laughed openly for a moment before he responded. “True. Would you?”

“Probably not.”

“Exactly.”

There was a pause while Spencer considered this, and grabbed one of the pillows against his chest. “He’s texted me fifteen times today,” he admitted, finally.

“Yeah, so?” Robbie raised an eyebrow and waited for the real issue.

“Half of those were him worrying abut my glucose,” Spencer started, and Robbie braced for a short rant. “I mean, I’m a grown man, and I’ve only had this for 27 years, so it’s _absolutely_ rational for him to hover…”

Robbie laughing again may have derailed the mood, but he was pretty sure it was for the best. When he stopped, and saw Spencer pouting at him, he did a double take. “Are you…sassing me?”

“The kids are rubbing off on me.” The pout stayed. It was inexplicably adorable. Robbie nearly reached over and pinched his cheek or something.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door, followed by a quiet, “Hello?”

“Hold that thought,” Robbie said, as he pushed himself to his feet, and went to the door. Just outside, he found a dark-haired teenager standing outside the door, back straight and hands folded behind her back.  “Can I help you?”

“Are you Mr. Rotterdam?” the girl asked. Her voice was quiet, and her eyes focused on Robbie's forehead.

Robbie nodded. “I am. And you are?”

“Eleanor Grey," she told him in the same clipped tone. "I saw the bulletin, that you were looking for volunteers?”

“Yeah.  Okay, come in.” Robbie held the door open for her, then called over to Spencer, who was thankfully no longer sitting on the floor, <<There’s someone here to help with the program. From the high school.>>

To her credit, Ella flinched minutely at the foreign words, but said nothing. She walked right over to the desk closest to the carpeted area, and sat down. There was something almost mechanical about it, the way she kept her eyes straight forward, and her steps were even and precise, as if she was actually walking on eggshells, or trying to keep her footsteps silent.

“This is Spencer Íþróttaálfurinn,” Robbie said, trying not to laugh at the panic that flitted across her face, “But don’t hurt yourself.  Just call him Spencer.”  
Spencer nodded, and reached over to shake her hand. “You could also use Sportacus. That’s what the kids call me.”

Ella raised one delicate eyebrow, clearly skeptical, and took Spencer’s hand gingerly.  Her hand disappeared in the process, dwarfed by his.

Robbie cleared his throat and continued with introductions. “Anyway, this is Eleanor Grey, and she’s here about volunteering.”

“Nice to meet you!” Spencer exclaimed, shaking her hand only slightly more gently than he had Robbie's, that first day.

Ella nodded in return, but still said nothing. She sat down at the desk across from Spencer, back perfectly straight and eyes focused somewhere just beyond Robbie.

Robbie hesitated in the silence, but eventually sat down on the desk next to Spencer, and started again. “Okay, then, Eleanor—”

“Ella.”

“Right. Ella.” He made a mental note, and kicked himself a little for not asking first. “Tell us about yourself. What made you want to volunteer?”

She took a breath, and her gaze flicked between Robbie and Spencer for a second. “I really liked the sound of this,” she finally said. “And I wish there had been something like it when I was a kid. Also, I need 20 community service hours to get my Junior privileges next year, and hanging out with kids after school seemed like something I could do, and that I’d enjoy.”

A quick glance at Spencer showed him to be a little alarmed by that admission. Robbie just nodded and moved on. “Okay. So, what have you got?” When Ella looked confused, he clarified. “What would you contribute?”

“I babysit, I guess. So I’ve had to keep kids entertained before.” There was a moment of silence, as she thought about it. “I took dance classes for a while. I can probably lead some basic yoga. I dunno. I can do some origami? I’m not super crafty, but I’m willing to work on it.”

“What kind of dance?” Robbie prompted, hoping to get her talking a little more.

“The works at Barb’s studio. Ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary… I did some gymnastics as a kid, too, and I’m pretty sure I can still turn a no-hands cartwheel.”

When Robbie looked over, Spencer’s eyebrows were hiding in the blond curls that still hung over his forehead, but his expression had changed from skeptical to grudgingly impressed. Robbie was about to ease her through the few questions they had, and telling her that they’d be happy to have her, when there was another knock on the door. Holding up his hands in what he understood to be the ‘time out’ gesture, Robbie went over to answer the door. Again.

By the time he got there, another teen, this one with bright red hair and a beatific smile on her face. Robbie recoiled internally, but held out a hand. “Mr. Rotterdam. Can I help you?”

The new girl grabbed his hand and shook it. “I’m here to help you, actually. Victoria Purcell. I saw the posting that you’re looking for help? I’d like to volunteer, and I have a number of friends who might also be interested.”

“That would be very helpful,” Robbie said. “We were actually just talking to another student about it, so feel free to join us.”  He led her over to Spencer and Ella, who had apparently been sitting and staring at each other, and gestured for her to sit. “I’d like to get a sense of you both, and make sure this is something that will work out for you.”

Victoria piped up immediately. “Oh, I’m sure it will. I’ve worked with kids before. You should know that I’m CPR and First Aid certified, and I come highly recommended by a number of families and all my teachers.”

“Thank you, Victoria,” Robbie told her, but she clearly wasn’t finished.

“I also think you should know that Ella can play nice, but she has an attitude problem,” the blonde girl continued. “You can ask anyone at the high school.”  
Ella rolled her eyes, and muttered, “Or you could let them think for themselves…”

Oh, Robbie liked this one.  He couldn’t tell you at all what it was.  Maybe he saw a little bit of his teenage self in her bearing, and her deadpan sarcasm, or maybe he was just a sucker for an underdog. Maybe he appreciated the honesty of her reasoning—the kids would certainly not tolerate the sugary sweet sap-fest that Victoria was trying to sell. 

<<I don’t know about you, Sport,>> he said, aside, <<But I’m inclined towards the one with the soul. Attitude problem be damned.>>

Spencer raised an eyebrow. <<Well, I don’t really appreciate the one smearing the other.  But shall we give her a chance? Call it an interview.>>

<<Fine,>> Robbie sighed, then muttered, <<You giant softie.>>

Victoria squinted at them during the exchange, then leaned over to ask Ella, “What are they saying?” Ella just shrugged.

“They’re probably talking about us,” she said. “And don’t _want_ us to know what they’re saying. Thus the other language.”

“Well, geez. You don’t have to be all smart about it.”

Robbie clapped his hands once, and spoke over any other voices. “Alright, so since you’re both here, we’ll split up. Ella, you will finish your interview with Spencer, and Victoria, you’re with me. If you’ll join me over on this side of the room?”

They walked a few paces away from Spencer and Ella, who also moved a bit in the other direction, and settled into two desks, facing one another.

“I did take a minute to print out my resumé for you,” Victoria said as soon as she sat down, smile not faltering for a second as she pushed two stapled pages towards him.  Robbie looked down at the calligraphic font she’d chosen for her name, as the top of the page, and sighed.

“I’ll look this over, but for now, tell me about yourself,” he said, reaching into the desk and coming up with Stephanie’s monogrammed pencil to take notes with. “What makes Victoria tick?”

“That’s a pretty sinister way to ask, but okay.” Victoria shrugged, and took a deep breath. “I’m an honors student, on the A-track, and taking AP Lit and Environmental. I play field hockey, and also volunteer at the stable down the road, exercising their horses. I was a girl scout up through middle school, and I was a CIT for one summer, so I have a lot of arts and crafts experience and have done some working with kids.”

Robbie nodded, and flipped over the resumé to jot down the highlights. “And your goals?” he asked. “Career dreams?”

“I want to be a veterinarian.” She didn’t elaborate, but admittedly, that wasn’t really relevant.

“Well, that’s ambitious. Good for you,” Robbie said, making a note before moving on. “Now, how often would you be available 3-4:30?”

Victoria immediately answered, “Mondays and Wednesdays.”

“Consistently?”

“Well, unless something else comes up.” Robbie looked up, and Victoria shrugged at him and added, “I do have a life, you know.”

Ah. So she hadn’t been fed all the answers. “I’m not sure you’re understanding,” Robbie told her. “Consistency is kind of important here. Familiar faces are important. People the kids can get to know and trust are important.”

Victoria’s face fell, and her mouth formed a small little ‘o’ for a moment. “Right. Yeah, I’ll make sure to keep Monday and Wednesday free.”

Robbie nodded, and she relaxed. “Would you be comfortable having one or two of the children with you on your own?”

Here, Victoria faltered again, and eventually said, “I don’t know. Probably not until I get to know them.”

“That’s fair,” Robbie assured her, and the blinding smile was back almost instantly. “It would likely just be things like walking someone to the bathroom, or taking one kid for a walk if they need some space. But only when you’re comfortable.”

“What do you mean, ‘if they need space’?”

“Kids are amazingly resilient, and deal with a lot more than we give them credit for,” Robbie started to explain, “But they also have stress. They can be over-stimulated. We may have some kids who have had bad experiences, because it happens, and sometimes, through no fault but ignorance, we remind them of those experiences. I’ve had students break down over the wording of a math problem. It’s embarrassing to cry in front of other kids, or to be overwhelmed, so sometimes they just need to get away from everything and calm down in peace and quiet.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “So, what, like their dog died, so they get special treatment?”

“Sometimes, depending how important the dog was to the child,” Robbie said. “Or sometimes one or their parents has died. Sometimes their guardians are constantly working, or always worried about making ends meet. Sometimes, their parents are splitting up, or fight so often the child thinks that they will. Sometimes, a child doesn’t always know where their next meal is coming from.  And more often than not, they don’t want special treatment. It’s up to us to figure out if they need it.”

“Isn’t is their parents’ job to fix that kind of stuff, though?” Victoria asked. From what Robbie could tell, it was an earnest question. “Like, get a better job, or take better care of your kids. Why is that your problem?” 

Victoria kept talking, but Robbie took a steadying breath, and struggled to keep his composure as his mind raced through all the parents he’d met with not two weeks before. The Lees, trying to engage with a daughter constantly looking to learn something new, or Dianne Rafferty whose husband was always traveling, and left her to try to understand her son’s preoccupation with material possessions. Mr. Finney, Mrs. Anderson, and the Moores, all barely managing to keep all the balls in the air. 

Dr. Meanswell, grieving and adjusting everything, trying to support his children, and all the while working surrounded by life and death in the ED, because he couldn't afford to stop.

“Is that why you’re considering Ella?” Victoria was saying. “Because you think she’ll be able to relate to your poor, downtrodden kids?  She’s nothing but trouble, have you heard about her—”

“Victoria, I’m actually more concerned with your lack of compassion than I am with Ella,” Robbie interrupted, dropping the neutral expression and the pretense. “This is not just another bullet point on your college applications. The point of this program is to help the kids who need it, so if you’re not going to be able to respect them and whatever background they come from, then you’re not going to be a good fit.”

There was a stretch of silence, in which Robbie and Victoria stared each other down. Robbie realized that at some point, he’d stood up, and was glaring down at an alarmingly steep angle. Spencer and Ella looked on awkwardly from the sidelines, having stopped their conversation when they heard raised voices. 

After a minute, Victoria backed down. “Well, if that’s really the way you want it,” she simpered, before standing up from the desk. “Good luck with Rotten Ella. You’ll need it.”

With that, Victoria shook her head at Robbie, and walked out.

Awkward silence swept through the room in her wake. Robbie sat completely frozen, standing behind Stephanie’s desk, staring at the door.

As the red faded from the edges of his vision, Robbie took a deep breath, then smiled a little and said, “Wow. Dodged a bullet with that one, huh, Spence?”

“Robbie…”

“I cannot believe you just did that,” Ella interrupted. “That was amazing.”

“Thank you,” Robbie replied. “So, does she pass, at least?”

Spencer blinked once. “Oh, uh, yeah. And her availability’s better than yours.”

“What?”

Ella shrugged. “I can do every day, unless I have a specific conflict. But that would only be things like doctor appointments.”

“Okay. Great.” Robbie let out another rush of air, still reeling a bit. “Here, write down your contact info, and we’ll be in touch.  We’re not starting until the new year, so no rush, really.”

Ella obediently wrote her name, phone number, and email on the sticky note Robbie offered her, and nodded to them both before she left.

“Was she really that bad?” Spencer asked, as Robbie went to gather up his things.  

Robbie nodded once, mechanically. “Yes. You ready to go?”

They stoped back at Spencer’s office quickly, before heading out. As they were driving, Spencer turned the music up, and seemed happy to let Robbie stew, and occasionally make snarky commentary.  It was oddly cathartic.

“Oh, the beginning of this one was nice,” Robbie said of one song.  “Why did they decide they had to stutter through the entire chorus? Also, no. No one wonders, or cares. Get over it.”

Spencer rolled his eyes at that one, and Robbie caught him mouthing along to some of the lyrics when he peeked over. He wasn't air drumming, either, which was a little odd, but after a long day Robbie really couldn't blame him.

That night, he got a text from Spencer.

‘will drive myself tomorrow. need to leave early for the weekend’

When Robbie sent back an affirmative and asked for more details, the only response was: 

‘going out of town. see you mon am’

Robbie didn’t see Spencer at all on Friday, and heard nothing through the whole weekend. Which was fine. If he was out of town with his brother, there were probably much more important things on his mind that texting Robbie.

The drive to school on Monday was surprisingly quiet. Spencer hit the CD button on Robbie’s stereo, and sat, staring out the window and sipping at his tea, while Debussy’s Greatest Hits played. Robbie tried to respect the silence, but prodded a few times, and just got monosyllabic answers. He gave up pretty quickly.

After the school day ended, he showed up to arm-wrestle with Ziggy, and seemed in much better spirits. There were no stress-push-ups, and all seemed back to normal until the Meanswells left. As soon as he and Robbie were alone, he clammed up again.

This time, Robbie wasn’t having it. He sat Spencer down, and asked, without prelude, “What did I do to upset you?”

“What?” Spencer blinked back at Robbie until he threw his hands in the air.

“You haven’t talked to me properly since Thursday.  It’s weird.” For a moment, Spencer paled, and Robbie continued, “Did I do something? Are you just upset about what happened with Ella and Victoria? Or is it your brother again, and you’re just taking it out on me?”

Spencer turned to look out the window at the grey sky, and sighed heavily. “It’s been a long weekend, Robbie. And yes, it did start with our volunteers.”

“Do you have a problem with Ella?” Robbie asked. He hadn’t seen any signs, and had thought Spencer actually seemed to like the girl. maybe he’d been wrong?

“No. _She_ doesn’t trust _me_ , but I suppose that can’t really be helped.” Spencer looked over for a second, to give Robbie a pointed look, before turning back to the window. “She and I weren’t quite the same house on fire situation.”

Robbie just sighed. “I know. I think she needs this, though, and I also think she’s who we have right now. And you know it.”

“I do.” Spencer’s face was blank, and it was strange. Robbie didn't like this at all. “That said, I want this to be a positive environment. That was the idea.”

Before he could go on, Robbie saw the tack he was on and interrupted. “Look, you asked me to help. I’m helping. If you don’t want me to help anymore, because I’m not always kittens and rainbows, then just say the word.”

“I would have preferred that you didn’t chase away the one who came in with a smile and a positive attitude.” It was as close to snapping as Robbie had heard since Halloween, with the carrots, though he immediately backtracked. “Maybe we could have taught her something, instead of yelling at her for not knowing any better.”

Robbie had no response to that. He’d been so proud of that moment, of defending his kids; of course Spencer had to tell him it had been wrong. And, of course, he was right.

“That’s not what I’m here about, though.” Spencer turned in his seat, and folded his hands together on the desk. “Milford told me I needed to either get involved in something for the holiday assembly, or figure out something new.”

Robbie was not surprised. “Yeah, and..?”

“I thought you might be able to help.” Oh, no. Not this too.

“Because I help you with everything else?” Robbie asked, before his brain was really consulted fully. He bit his tongue as soon as the words left his mouth.

Spencer squinted at him, and shook his head. “Actually, because he mentioned that you’re barely involved yourself, and if I was going to come up with something new, you’d be the person to work with. And because I asked the other teachers what existing acts I could fit into, and I don’t think that’s going to work out.”

Robbie’s tongue hurt now, but apparently still had a mind of its own. “Oh?” He drawled sarcastically, “And why would that be?”

“Because they all involve singing,” Spencer explained. “And you’ve told me plenty of times how intolerable my singing is.”

Okay, that was a good point. One Robbie had not previously considered, but now realized was very true. That didn’t change anything, though. “So, what do you need me for?”

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer admitted, and Robbie could _feel_ the puppy eyes coming on. “Christmas has mostly just been relaxing with family, food, and everyone gets a new book or two. I don’t know how to share that. So I was thinking maybe we could combine some of my traditions with yours, and figure something out from there.”

There was just one fault in his logic. “I don’t have any traditions.”

“You do celebrate something, right?” Spencer asked. “Christmas? Hanukkah? Yule?”

Robbie just shook his head. “Not really. Christmas, I guess, as much as I celebrate anything.”

Spencer rolled his eyes, and pressed, "What does that mean?”

“It means I order a deluxe pizza, play myself some Nutcracker, and sleep through the long nights of the year in peace.” Robbie folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, eyebrow arched. Spencer could judge him all he wanted.

Spencer just looked at him like he’d just learned Santa wasn’t real, and choked out, “That’s _terrible_.” 

“Maybe so, but I’m terrible, so it all works out.” Robbie saw the reproving look, and scoffed. “I'm not going to walk you through this, too. I’m already managing your after-school thing. Find someone else to hold your hand for once.”

“Fine. I will find someone else.” Spencer stood, and after extricating himself from the desk, started towards the door. “Maybe we'll paint you green and try to make your heart grow a few sizes,” he said from the doorway. 

“You do that.” A full two minutes later, after Spencer was long gone, he tacked on, “And get them to drive you home, while you’re at it!”

Robbie sat down to compile his sticky notes, which he’d started making even more often than usual as he started having more and more ideas about different projects. There were the ones about the students, but also after-school activity concepts and notes, and thoughts on new recipes to try for the holiday season.  
He was absolutely not stalling in the hopes that Spencer would return and make it clear whether or not he still expected a ride. That would be silly.

Half an hour later, though, Spencer was in the doorway again, grinning wildly. “Robbie, I’ve got it!” he crowed. “And you would be perfect!”

“For what?” Robbie asked. He already disagreed, just on principle.

Spencer’s grin widened, and clapped his hands once. “Being the Grinch!"

Robbie just blinked back at him, now completely lost. Had he missed something important? “What are you talking about?”

“I figured out how to put them together! My books and your grumpiness!” He came striding into the room, and took Robbie by the shoulders. “We get a copy of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and I’ll read it aloud, and you act out the part of the Grinch. Like a one-man play!”

The tight grip on his shoulders was distracting, and Robbie was having enough trouble picturing the idea even without that. He looked down at the triumph on his friend’s face, and even as his mind told him, “You will regret this,” he felt himself capitulating.

“We’re not going to actually paint me green, are we?” he asked weakly. “It’s not really my color.”

Spencer barked a laugh, and shook his head as he pulled Robbie into a hug and told him he was the best friend he could ask for. Which, all things considered, made the whole mess almost start to be worth it. Almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K, so turns out that cutting 50 hours of work out of my weekly schedule doesn't make me any less busy. It just means I can finally take care of all the things I'd been neglecting. Namely exercise, cleaning, and my share of the cooking.
> 
> I wanted to have RottenElla in this fic because I need someone who can actually relate to Robbie, and frankly, the kids are too young in this AU for that to work. She was originally going to be a student teacher, but this way seemed more organic. She won't be hugely involved, but we will be seeing more of her.
> 
> I will get to more of Magnus. I do apologize for dropping him into the end of last chapter and just completely ignoring him here, but, well... I also apologize for neglecting the kids. There will be much more of them in the next chapter.
> 
> For anyone curious, the songs mentioned in this and past chapters are not only all real songs, but are all songs I hear on my regular radio station (a classic rock station that Spencer's is based on). There are only two thus far, I believe, but they'll keep cropping up; name them for virtual baked goods!


End file.
